The gulf between the project and the dream

The Labour Party ran an election campaign on the aspirational slogan Your Dream, Our Project. It put quality of life at the centre of its message. The PL promised that the dream of a beautiful country, where families can enjoy free time in public parks, where urban spaces become safe, enjoyable experiences and accessible to all, where children can play and run in open spaces, would become the government’s project.

The PL so believed in its message that it kicked off its electoral campaign inside Fort Tigne, which along with Manoel Island were taken back by the government just before the election was called. Throughout the election campaign, Manoel Island and the promise to turn it into a national park was presented as a prime example of the quality-of-life project the PL was willing to embrace if it won the general election.

But just a few weeks into the new legislature and the dream started to lose its lustre. We were regaled by a nonchalant prime minister, who in his first interview gave the impression that everyone is enjoying a luxurious life, buying new cars and boats, and this lifestyle comes with its trade-offs that people have to accept. And asked by his interviewer to what extent the government intended to commercialise Manoel Island, Robert Abela incredulously replied: “It’s too early to say. It shouldn’t become a commercial hub, but it shouldn’t be a dead place either. We want a green hub for relaxation.”

And bang on cue, the Planning Authority obliged by sanctioning 20 illegally-built padel courts on Manoel Island, and approving an additional 10, in a project fronted by Sharlon Pace, the Gżira United Football Club president.

What happened was the usual story. The football club went ahead building padel courts—not even a football pitch—before it obtained a permit. And because planning law allows this to happen without meaningful consequence, the club than applied to sanction the development. Approval was granted against a pitiful €25,000 planning gain fee. The message was clear: Bullies who decide to build without permits are accommodated. The build first, sanction later philosophy will continue to persist unless politicians change planning policies to make such reckless behaviour not worth it. Whether politicians—the Labour government in particular—have the will to do so is another matter altogether.

It is instances like the padel courts saga that create dissonance between the dream and the project.

Now, we are not saying that Gżira Utd should not have their own football pitch. Indeed, they always had a football pitch at Manoel Island before this was taken away from them as a result of the concession granted to MIDI plc.

Under the original plans, MIDI had to build a new football ground by relocating it to the northern side of the island, close to the shipyard. Obviously, that project has now been abandoned after government dissolved the concession agreement with MIDI.

In the aftermath, we would have expected a holistic vision of Manoel Island as a national park to include football facilities that would benefit the locality’s club. But the vision had to come first. As things stand today, the football club cannibalised part of the island to build sport facilities that are not even consonant with the needs of the club. The land, which the club claims was granted to them on concession in the 1970s, is being used for commercial activities—a restaurant and padel courts, which are everything but football related.

Unfortunately, the government has not yet come up with a blueprint of what it intends to do in Manoel Island and already it feels like the beautiful dream of having a national park with open spaces unpolluted by commercialisation is fading.

The next thing we know is that some wise guy somewhere will dream up a fanciful idea of having a casino at Lazarette, a yacht marina with ancillary facilities and commercial outlets along the southern seafront and suddenly this will become government’s project.

Of course, this is mere speculation but when the someone like the prime minister says Manoel Island “shouldn’t be a dead place either”, we shudder. There is a lot that is left unsaid in those words, which can have an adverse effect on the dream that thousands of petitioners had when they signed up to the campaign pushed by Moviment Graffitti and Flimkien għall-Ambjent Aħjar to have Manoel Island returned to the public as a national park.

A nature park where people can go and enjoy a walk in a car-free environment; or swim on rocky coastline in the shadows of a historic fort; or simply walk their dog; or sit on a blanket below a tree and enjoy a picnic is not ‘dead’ but quality of life in its simplest form. The use of the historic buildings for subtle, cultural events without disturbing the peace each and every night, is not ‘dead’ but quality of life.

We only hope that there will not be a gulf between the project and the dream, even though the initial shots indicate otherwise.