longer route confirmed... no time restrictions!

Quote:

CHIPPING DOWN THE ROAD on Grand Kadooment day will once again be like old times for masqueraders. Besides doing away with the two routes as travelled last year and adding at least an extra mile, the revellers will be given the space and time to get down the road without any time restrictions. That was the word from chairman of the National Cultural Foundation (NCF), Ken Knight, yesterday. He told the Sunday SUN that NCF officials met with the Royal Barbados Police Force, security forces and many of the mas' bands "and it was acknowledged that there were restrictions". "We had a meeting and there was a general consensus that the police would cooperate this year with the bands in that regard," he added. Last year, bandleaders and masqueraders complained they were "rushed" to Spring Garden because of new regulations governing the time bands were to be on the road, which included detailing points on the route at which the bands were to arrive by a particular time. There was further confusion, they said, because this information was not passed on to the ranks of the force in a timely manner. Knight also confirmed there would be a slight change to the route that takes revellers from the National Stadium, down Station Hill onto Bank Hall and then to Eagle Hall. Longer jump "Rather than making the left at Brighton, they would head straight along Black Rock Main Road to the Frank Worrell Roundabout where they would make the left and head straight down Spring Garden Highway," he said. For the first time last year revellers played mas' on two routes, but when Grand Kadooment was completed, both the Barbados Association of Bandleaders and the Barbados Association of Masqueraders called for "an entirely new route". At the time, the NCF released a statement stating that there were "serious security concerns which called for the two routes to be cleared before dark" while the force said the two routes had put tremendous strain on already limited police resources.

Baje International http://www.baje-intl.com/

they took make the extra mile .. band leaders claimed it was too costly