tag for the new National Sports Centre. We agree that the price is high but quality is expensive and the PLP cannot have it both ways.

They have complained loud and clear about the inadequacies of the National Stadium and there were mistakes made at the stadium. Doubtless their complaints are part of the reasoning to expand the stadium into a world class sports centre. Now they are complaining about the price of creating it. Yet if the trustees of the centre were to cut the plans to improve the price, it is clear the PLP would once again complain that the centre was not as good as it should be and did not contain as many facilities as it should.

This is a "damned if you do and damned if you don't'' situation. This newspaper was aware and the PLP and Shadow Sports Minister Nelson Bascome should have been aware, that the trustees of the National Sports Centre had plans to raise large sums of money privately to ease the pressure on public funds. That is one of the great advantages Donald Lines, former president of the Bank of Bermuda, brings to the trustees as their chairman. He has the contacts and he knows how and where to raise large sums of money.

Director of Youth and Sport, Anthony Roberts, has been quoted as saying: "Mr.

Donald Lines, chairman of the trustees, has outlined a wide-ranging programme for private finance to us. Private sources will finance the majority of the project and I'm very optimistic that more than enough money will be made available. The funding project is in place and Bermuda's taxpayers can rest easy.'' He has said that the public will pay "a small percentage'' of the final cost of this project. Once again Bermuda should be thankful to an extraordinarily generous local private sector and to the international company sector and individual non-Bermudians with strong connections to Bermuda. There have been any number of large fund campaigns in recent years and we believe the generosity is probably unmatched anywhere. This National Sports Centre is planned as just what it says it is. There will be facilities for competitive sports and also for those people who use sport for recreation or fitness. This centre is being designed by top professionals as a comprehensive facility and is much more inclusive than the public may think.

We believe that the range of facilities and the quality of both the planning and the construction will in the end make Bermudians very proud of what a small Country can achieve. Right now just the size of the construction site at Frog Lane indicates how much is being undertaken.