Barbadians to Enjoy Free Access to Playing Fields and Facilities in Community Centers, Thanks to New Government Initiatives

Members of sports teams and other Barbadians will no longer have to pay for the use of lights at playing fields in their communities.

Minister of Youth, Sports and Community Empowerment Charles Griffith said his ministry will be putting measures in place to facilitate this.

Griffith also said centre management committees would be established throughout the country to make it easier for Barbadians to access the centres and pavilions, including at night.

He was responding to concerns raised by Minister of Home Affairs and Information Wilfred Abrahams who said “it is very frustrating for people to have difficulty accessing pavilions”, especially after hours.

Abrahams, who is Member of Parliament for Christ Church East, also reminded the House of Assembly during debate on the Appropriation Bill, 2025 recently that Prime Minister Mia Mottley had indicated that she wanted to have the lights for free.

“We need to have some ease of access to the pavilions after hours. So when people come home from work and they want to go and run about, they want to go and play dominoes, they want to go and use a pavilion for dancing or whatever, the fields and the facilities need to be fully accessible to persons after working hours,” Abrahams said.

He added: “I know that the Prime Minister had indicated that she wanted . . . to do away with the tokens [and] have the lights on for free because it was not fair to . . . be trying to run down [people] for tokens and the money you got for tokens didn’t actually justify the headache and harassment for it.”

Griffith said on the first issue that “we are putting together something called centre management committees that will allow for exactly what you are asking for”.

“Individuals from within the community will come together, maybe four to six, to be responsible not only for our community centres, but also the pavilion,” he explained.

“That will allow activities after closing time to continue at the location where we have youngsters who may want to use the washroom facilities, the restroom facilities, then somebody will be there at the location to provide access to all of those individuals.

“We know that a lot of the pastures now persons are exercising, so this will provide an opportunity for the centre management committee to kick into play to open those facilities,” he noted.

Griffith also said his ministry was “moving towards a situation where all the lights at our playing fields will be made free to those individuals who have clubs, who do practice, who have official games”.

He said the National Sports Council would have an app it could use to ensure that the use of lights at playing fields was not abused.

“So your concerns are being addressed all around with the centre management committees. And then we’ll make putting measures in place to be able to control the lights, even though they will be free to those entities who will be using [them] at the playing fields,” Griffith added.