By Jerry Francis
It amuses me to see big bold letters “BBQ LAMB” erected on the arches at the entrance of a once beautiful Ipoh Riverfront Park located beside the Kinta River, along Jalan Sultan Iskandar Shah, in the heart of the city.
Has the city council renamed the park? I wonder. However, to anyone it now appears that the whole complex is to be known as BBQ Lamb.
It is because the defunct restaurant in the park will soon be operating. It will specialise in barbeque lamb and grilled beef, chicken and duck.
Well, even if it is so, do we have to rename the park “BBQ LAMB”?
Why not remain as the Ipoh Riverfront Park, where over RM4.4 million of taxpayers money were spent about eight years ago, rather than it be known as “BBQ LAMB”?
What would happen if the project aimed at making barbeque lamb as popular as the city’s Chicken Tauge, failed? Do we end up with a failed “BBQ LAMB”?
It is commendable that the city council is coming up with yet another idea to revive the park, which has been neglected and abandoned for years.
All previous plans to save the park have failed.
Let us hope it will be a success this time, and will offer another attraction to the increasing number of tourists coming to the city, particularly during weekends and public holidays.
The Ipoh Riverfront Park, which was uniquely designed and developed with great emphasis on Islamic motifs and patterns both in the structures and on the ground, could have been a popular tourists’ attraction on its own had it been well looked after and maintained.
Instead, after a short glorious existence following its transformation from the “People’s Park” into a spectacular garden of grandeur, it has become a haven for drug addicts.
I hope whatever plans the city council has for the revival of the park will be a success. All the public recreation parks in the city too need to be spruced up.
