[WATCH] Birkirkara should be transformed into ‘people-friendly’ town, AD says

Birkirkara should be transformed from a “drive-through locality and a passage for storm water” into an accessible and “people-friendly town”, Alternattiva Demokratika said on Saturday.

Addressing a press conference in the town’s square, AD leader Carmel Cacopardo said that Birkirkara, owing to a lack of planning and enforcement over the years, was now facing challenges related to traffic and flooding in the locality.

“Successive governments have only focused on the effect [of flooding] but have done little to address the cause,” he said. The town, he said, needed a proper flood management system, seeing as currently, millions of litres of water was either being lost or causing substantial damage every year.

“Because of a lack of enforcement of laws requiring the building of wells within each household, Birkirkara has become the victim of incompetent public administration over the years,” Cacopardo claimed. 

Turning to traffic, Cacopardo said the locality, like many others around the island, would benefit greatly from the findings of the government’s own National Strategy on Transport, which recommends a reduction in car use for short-distance trips. The strategy also encourages the use of bicycles and public means of transport.

“Birkirkara must no longer be a drive-through locality in the centre of the country,” he said. “More streets in Birkirkara should be returned to the people through predestination.”

In general, he said Birkirkara needed to be made more accessible, with suitably sized pavements to encourage walking.

“Birkirkara should be at the forefront in encouraging the government to direct some of the €700 million allocated to road reconstruction towards suitable and reachable walk-ways,” he said.

Another issue facing the locality, AD said, was a lack of good governance in the way the local council is administered. AD also claimed that the Birkirkara local council lacks good governance. 

“The National Auditor Office reports that although council finances are today better than they were some years ago, but the financial situation has still not reached the levels required by good administration,” Birkirkara local council candidate Anna Azzopardi said.

If elected, she pledged to work to improve the situation in the town, as had happened whenever an AD candidate was elected in the past.

The AD promised that if a party candidate was elected into the Birkirkara council, she will improve the situation, as previously done by councillors elected from the party’s camp.