Sports Minister Dennis Lister was yesterday both upbeat and hopeful about the re-phased development of the National Sports Centre being completed by the end of the year 2000.

News of the re-phased programme was included in the Government's Throne Speech at the reconvening of Parliament.

But the minister admitted there could be difficulties meeting the projected completion date, because of the Island's booming construction market.

So much building is going on that there are doubts about the availability of construction companies to work on the project.

The House of Assembly yesterday heard Governor Thorold Masefield declare: "The Ministry of Youth, Sport, Parks and Recreation has re-phased the development of the National Sports Centre in Prospect and National Sports Centre Trustees are now working toward completing a covered grandstand, and all weather multi-sport surface for competition and training for a variety of outdoor sports, a full-size cricket pitch and pavilion, soccer fields and a jogging track by the end of the year 2000.'' Lister said: "As far as our time schedule is concerned and where we have to be as far as what the Trustees feel and the design of plans are, we are on target.'' "But the date to have the work completed is something we cannot predict right now, because of the shortage of available of construction companies who are heavily booked which means we have to nurse through these restraints right now.

"But what has to be clear is that from our perspective we are on target with what we had to do to re-phase the plan. It's now a matter of meeting the demands of the current construction market.'' According to Lister, when the PLP took power they had to look at the logistics of a project with astronomical costs, escalating to a whopping $50 million.

And the expectation at the time that the work would take more than four years to complete enforced steps to be taken to scale it down and proceed in stages.

"From the very beginning my immediate assumption was that was too long to let the public sit and wait, my view was that it had been far too long without a truly usable facility,'' said Lister.

"We had to look at what could be sectioned off and completed and we looked at the northern side (the cricket) and the southern (the soccer and track) and realised that these were the areas which could be completed in a relatively short period of time, and it would also give the public some satisfaction that there is a usable facility there. That's what our objective is.

"The trustees have been giving a time frame of having it completed before the year 2000 is finished, we've had our re-phasing plan completed to fit our requirements, including some amenities that were never in the original plan, such as a covered grandstand.'' Lister was reluctant to name a finishing date for the work -- mainly because of the construction market.

"As far as we are concerned we are moving timely in that area ... the hold-up has been the construction market in Bermuda right now.

"We are pushing very hard from our side to see to it that we meet the time frames that we have set, but allowing us to meet that objective will be the restraints of the current construction market, there is no doubt about that.

"To meet that time frame, and also to keep it on target and on budget, we may have to be creative on how we meet our deadline.

"Earlier in Parliament this year I was able to get approval of how we are going to fund this thing over the next time period and that's all taken care of.''