Sliema is choking to death

A few days ago I had a meeting with the Sliema Residents’ Association. What they told me is very similar to what I have heard from people living in the South: Fgura, Zejtun, Marsaxlokk and Birzebbuga protesting against the deteriorating situation of public health and natural environment in the south of Malta due to a power station, incinerator, waste treatment plant, commercial port and fish-farms.

The people of Sliema are also slowly choking to death because of the poor air quality in such a small overbuilt area with heavy traffic and lack of open spaces and gardens.

Even in Sliema the acceptable pollution limits established by the EU are being broken and Transport Malta, the Malta Environment and Planning Authority (MEPA), national government and local council are all passing the buck to each other without helping to find a real solution to the pollution problem in Sliema.

The Air Quality Plan for the Maltese Islands identifies the Valletta and Sliema agglomeration as a zone where pollution limits are being exceeded due to the Marsa Power Station and heavy traffic.

262,061 live in this zone where the rates of cancer and respiratory diseases are among the highest in the Maltese Islands. Air monitoring in this zone shows that pollution has got worse in the last five years due to more emission emissions from the power station and heavier traffic.

In March 2007 the Sliema Local Council decided to carry out two studies on the traffic problems of the area, but these studies have never been carried out although the local council voted unanimously for them and even budgeted 5000 euros to finance them. There is no indication that things are going to get better.

Sliema residents cannot understand why the local plan was revised to make things worse by depriving Sliema of the only remaining open space – Villa Bonici and its surroundings – that can be turned imaginatively into a space to be enjoyed by people by transforming the area into accessible public gardens and community facilities including a home for senior citizens.

Government is allowing this space to be buried under more buildings that will only serve to generate more traffic, have an ugly visual impact on the landscape, increase demand for water and electricity that are already overstretched and increase pollution for Sliema residents who are already choking to death.