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| Unfinished: Shaw Park Cultural Complex. Photo Courtesy TobagoNews |
THE multi-million dollar Shaw Park Cultural Complex has failed its fire inspection.
Media Groups have learnt that fire officers toured the structure last weekend and found it lacked adequate lighting and storage space and that there were no proper directional signage in the case of an emergency. The complex, which was started in 2005, will seat up to 5,000 people when it is finished.
There will now be a re-inspection by the fire service. NIPDEC, which manages the project, now has three months to address the failures, and to get the facility ready for public use.
The Divisional Fire Officer, David Thomas, says, “We are almost very happy with what was done. There are some areas in which we need to partner with the contractor to have rectified so everyone can be happy.”
Millions of dollars in taxpayers’ money has been already spent on the complex. In September, the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) announced that it would be putting pressure on NIPDEC to complete the complex by early 2014. As of 2008, the project’s estimated cost was $196 million and was to have been completed in 2010 at a cost of $250 million. Last year, the estimated cost of the project stood at $400 million.