A MONORAIL has been suggested as an option to ease congestion to Sherbourne Conference Centre when it is redeveloped.

It came from parliamentary representative for the constituency Christ Church West Central, Stephen Lashley, who made the comment in Parliament Tuesday during a land resolution to lease the land on which it sits to the parent company, Barbados Conference Services Limited (BCSL). It was also announced at that time that the Sherbourne Conference Centre would be renamed the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Conference and Cultural Centre.

"We cannot only be looking at ground transportation, I want to put on the table that in looking at the re-development of Sherbourne Conference Centre in a holistic way, we should consider the question of the use of monorail connecting the catchment areas . . . .

"The monorail has been used very effectively in other countries which have done very well in relation to conference tourism," he added.

Lashley called on the Minister of Transport John Boyce to consider the use of the monorail as "a collaborative effort" because the tourism product within the Sherbourne Conference Centre "will take us not only in relation to solving some of our unemployment problems but in seeing conference tourism in a futuristic way because we are not only planning for the next five years".

"We have to see a redevelopment of Sherbourne within at least the next 15 years down the road," he added. (TM)