Fortuna Belrose, President of the Saint Lucia Olympic Committee, told insidethegames here that organisers hope to obtain the Government's commitment by the end of March, enabling the secretariat to be established in April.

Some 1,000 athletes, ranging in age between 14 and 18, and 250 officials from the 71 Commonwealth countries are expected to gather in the eastern Caribbean for the event.

The programme is to feature seven sports, designed to optimise use of the island's infrastructural facilities and showcase its natural attributes: athletics, swimming, cricket, netball, beach volleyball, cycling and tennis.

Most sports facilities are in place.

Saint Lucia Olympic Committee President Fortuna Belrose, pictured (left) during the Queen's Baton Relay ahead of the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games, has revealed the funding ©Glasgow 2014

According to Belrose, a 50-metre swimming pool is to be constructed adjacent to the Beauséjour cricket stadium at a cost of just over $4 million (£2.6 million/€3.4 million), funded by the Taiwanese Government.

The Government may also opt to construct an Athletes' Village, in order to provide a housing legacy for the island.

The alternative would be to locate athletes and officials in hotels, of which there is a plentiful supply, as befits a well-known tourist destination.

Athletics events, and perhaps the Games Ceremonies are expected to be staged at the Chinese-financed George Odlum Stadium, named after the former Foreign Minister.

This will be the sixth edition of an event first held in Edinburgh in 2000.

High jumper Levern Spencer won Saint Lucia's only medal, a bronze, at senior level at the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games ©Getty Images

Apia in Samoa is to host the 2015 Games in September.

The inclusion of a 12-team Twenty20 cricket competition on the programme for Castries raises the question of whether this could act as a stepping-stone for the sport to return to the main Commonwealth Games programme.

Moves to get cricket onto the programme for the first time in 20 years, at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in cricket-mad Australia, came to nothing.

A process is underway, however, to reconsider the make-up of the Commonwealth Games sports programme.

At present, the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) adopts a relatively flexible approach in which 10 core sports - athletics, badminton, men's boxing, hockey, lawn bowls, netball, men's rugby sevens, squash, swimming and weightlifting - are complemented, at the discretion of the host city, by up to an additional seven from a large pool of other options.

This process is expected to reach a conclusion at the 2015 CGF General Assembly in Auckland in September.

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