Restaurant pontoon for seaborne patrons is new threat to coastline

The Beef Bar restaurant on the promenade of Dawret il-Gżejjer in Bugibba is seeking permits for three single-point moorings and a 15m-long floating pontoon for the fore-shore next to the Serena lido.

Although not designated a swimming zone, the seabed forms part of a wider marine protection area, and the rocky foreshore is still undeveloped.

The Environment and Resources Authority has already warned that such a development would set a precedent for more development along the coastline.

The restaurant wants the pontoon to serve as a landing point for sea-borne customers owing to its coastline location, between May and mid-September before being dismantled.

The pontoon and its gantry will cover a 600sq.m area, extending for 15m with three single moorings some 55m off the coastline. The pontoon will be kept in place with three one-tonne counterweights and cables.

AIS Environment, who penned Beef Bar’s project development statement, acknowledged the pontoon would increase maritime traffic, and “could lead to a domino-effect for the local commercial activities in the area”.

Annual anchoring of the floating pontoon may also cause physical dislodgement of protected seagrass species, and shading of underlying species.

But AIS claimed these impacts are minor in what is not a swimming zone, and possibly mitigated by erecting a silt curtain during construction.

The Environment and Resources Authority however said the pontoon would lead to up-take and formalisation of the natural coast, which is still relatively open and pristine, creating pressures for further development, and an undesirable precedent for similar future proposals in other sensitive areas.

The site is a Special Area of Conservation, called Żona fil-Baħar fil-Grigal ta’ Malta, a Natura 2000 site hosting protected habitats like Posidonia beds and protected species, such as the endemic and endangered Maltese Top-shell.