This was revealed by Lionel Weekes, permanent secretary in the Ministry of Family, Youth Affairs Sports and the Environment during the feature address at the awards and opening ceremony of the Barbados Netball Association (BNA) in Lecture Theatre 1, at the Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies on Saturday night.
"One of the things that we are very concerned about is facilities provision. A decision has not yet been taken as to whether or not we are going to redevelop on the existing National Stadium site or go to a green area elsewhere on the island," he said.
Weekes said a 15 to 20-member consultancy service came from China "some time back" to review the plan for the National Stadium, and they had also explored the possibility of a whole new location at that time.
"They reviewed all aspects of the plan that we had of the National Stadium and we took them to an alternative site – which we will not mention at this time – but a site in the south to look at as a possibility where we would not only have track and field, football
and cycling, the three games which dominate the National Stadium at this time, but to have a home for sports to cover about 15 or 20 games or so, indoor sports as well as external sports where we could have one facility."
At the Beijing Olympic in August, officials will meet with Chinese authorities to look at technical cooperation and funding for the project.
Meanwhile, architect Tony Brooks has been instructed to continue working on "an ultra-modern facility at the netball stadium" to cope
with netball, basketball, volleyball, badminton and boxing.
This facility will have the capacity of holding up to 4 000 people, with the Wildey Gymnasium available if greater capacity is needed.
"Instructions have been given to the gymnasium that there are to be no charges for indoor sport," Weekes said to applause.
On April 9, Brooks is scheduled to meet with the NSC board to give an update. $1 million has been procured from the Arts and Sport Foundation for the multi-purpose facility.