MONTEGO BAY, St James – Optimism that work on the synthetic track at the Montego Bay Sports Complex was due to start soon after an announcement in a local newspaper last week has been tempered.

An announcement in the tri-weekly newspaper last weekend said the field at the Montego Bay Sports Complex was closed with immediate effect spurred optimism that long-overdue work was about to start.

However, chairman of the St James Municipal Council, Councillor Leeroy Williams, told the Jamaica Observer on Monday that while the football field had been closed for “regular maintenance”, the complex was not closed.

The Mondo running surface at the sports complex was in the news recently after a video showing two high-powered race cars in what was thought to be a race around the track that has not been used for athletics events since 2018.

It was discovered that the cars, one of which was driven by race driver Doug “Hollywood” Gore, were on the track for a video shoot for a music video.

Gore later explained his part in the incident and apologised, while Mayor Williams told the Observer he had ordered an investigation on how the cars came to be on the track.

The mayor explained that the football field that has also come under a lot of scrutiny when two international games were played there earlier this year, “has been closed for rehabilitation, not the facility”.

He added “the estimated reopening time” was set for late September, but further added he had “directed the team to improve efficiency to meet the new football season, should the field be requested for games by the start of September”.

The work on the field, Williams said, “is part of our regular maintenance operation”.

“However, like any international stadium, we will pause to do a little more, such as ripping, reseeding, slicing, watering and fertilising. This will be assumed under our operational cost and not treated as a separate project,” he noted.

In the wake of the video showing the racing cars on the track, Sports Minister Olivia “Babsy” Grange had said that plans for the upgrading of the stadium and the re-laying of the running track was still on course.