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James Debono
Last Wednesday’s consultation meeting for Sliema shop owners, during which plans for a Lm1 million land reclamation project to create space for a new car park were announced, was held to pre-empt a meeting organised by the Qui-Si-Sana residents’ association on Friday.
The meeting was organised by parliamentary secretary Edwin Vassallo. Roads Minister Jesmond Mugliett and Environment Minister George Pullicino also attended the meeting during which shop owners were shown the latest traffic plans for the locality.
The media was not informed of the meeting and a crew from Super One TV was barred from filming and reporting the meeting.
During the meeting, Mugliett said that although the consultation meeting had nothing to do with the forthcoming local election, the public consultation meeting was held in view of last Friday’s meeting for Sliema residents.
“I know that these issues will be raised in next Friday’s meeting. I have nothing against you attending this meeting. But I wanted you to hear about this issue from the horse’s mouth.”
The meeting was so hastily organised that according to Mugliett, the Transport Authority’s architect had finished preparing the latest plans at 2:00 am on Wednesday. The plans shown on Wednesday were the ninth version of traffic plans according to the minister.
The minister himself said that the plans could still change in the future.
Sliema shop owners only learned of the meeting on Tuesday – when they received a letter signed by parliamentary secretary Edwin Vassallo dated on the same day.
Contacted by MaltaToday on Tuesday, Edwin Vassallo said that the meeting had been organised on his own initiative after shop owners had lamented to him on the lack of information surrounding the Sliema traffic plans.
MaltaToday was the first to reveal the first plans shown to a group of residents in a meeting with Mugliett in November.
In the first plans, parking spaces on the Strand have been virtually eliminated. But since then opposition to these plans had been mounting, with the Malta Chamber of SMEs (GRTU) taking a clear stand against any reduction of parking spaces in the area.
The elimination of parking spaces was being proposed in view of widening the existing road to accommodate a dual lane as well as two new roundabouts.
During last Wednesday’s meeting, shop owners were shown new plans in which the number of parking spaces at the ferries is being reduced but not at the same extent as before.
According to the new plans, the reclamation of 12 metres of the surrounding sea is being proposed to create space for an “organised car park.”
According to Minister Mugliet this land reclamation project will cost an extra Lm1 million. The project is now set to cost the government Lm3 million.
Despite the attempt to alleviate the concern of shop keepers, Edwin Vassallo himself admitted that while only 13 parking spaces will be lost from the Ferries car park, another 100 on street parking spaces will be lost.
Yet Vassallo added that the introduction of short-stay parking would make even more parking spaces available. He even claimed that this would create space for 1,000 new short-stay parking spaces.
Mugliett himself acknowledges that the new organised car park will not be free of charge. According to Mugliet the new car park will be commercially run but he expects it to be a low cost one.
Speaking from the floor, Exotique owner and GRTU committee member Grace Borg expressed her amazement on how things had changed in just a week.
“Only last week, when I mentioned the idea of land reclamation in a meeting with the Transport Authority I was laughed at by the officials present.”
Although Bisazza Street and part of Tower Road, between Joinwell and Ghar id-Dud, will be pedestrianised, buses will be allowed to pass from the pedestrianised zone.
“Bisazza Street will be embellished and paved but occasionally a bus will be passing from this road,” Mugliett said.
While the road at the Ferries will become a dual lane one, the road at Qui-Si-Sana where traffic will be exiting from the MIDI project’s tunnel, will be a single lane.
In a heated exchange with Labour’s Sliema councillor Martin Debono, minister George Pullicino insisted that this would not create congestion on the single lane at Qui-Si-Sana because the MIDI and Holiday Inn projects will absorb the traffic flow.
Martin Debono, who attended the meeting, described the meeting as a pre-electoral gimmick in view of the forthcoming council elections.
jdebono@mediatoday.com.mt
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