From Mr H. Arnett
I feel sure Cabinet must rue that day in 2001 when they closed St Catherine’s Road to casual traffic, rather than close the firework factories after the second explosion in 2000.
The whole concept was wrong, as the death of five workers and the thousands of liri of damage to nearby residences has shown.
The prevailing nonsensical situation which arose in April 2001 has been made more annoying to residents and their friends and “suppliers of goods and chattels” by the fact that the relevant authority went off at half cock and people failed to read the letter they received from the Permanent Secretary, the Ministry For Home Affairs properly which said: “ Cabinet has approved the closure to traffic of the road within the prohibited zone (being the area in the vicinity of the said fireworks factory), except for residents and individuals who work in the factory and the neighbouring fields”.
After attempts had been made to overturn Cabinet’s decision, the signage that you see today was immediately put up. This was, quite bluntly the wrong signage.
At the relevant junctions with main roads, “cul-de-sac” signs should have been placed with the relevant message boards, and 183 metres away from “Ground Zero” “No Entry from either end” signs with the relevant “except for” message boards, which would have allowed the many visitors and service vans and trucks to reach residents with far less hassle and without the risk of being fined for disobeying the incorrect signage.
As a corollary, once the ADT made the road from Tal Balal to Ibrag, Madliena etc “One Way”, it was a total requirement for Cabinet and its bustling Prime Minister to close the firework factories and to instruct the ADT to open St Catherine’s Road for at least One Way traffic, to allow people to reach and leave residential areas sorely affected by the one-way system closing the principle artery to all through traffic coming from Naxxar, Iklin, Birkirkara and so on.
If this had been done five people who died so violently, would be alive today.
Hugh Arnett