The big car park at the entrance to Valletta, known as MCP car park, will close the gaping hole in the middle and add a further 443 car spaces as a result of a Mepa permit agreed to by the board today.

"We have been waiting 20 years for this,"exclaimed Mepa CEO Johann Buttigieg at one stage.

In fact, there was an application submitted in 1994 for an extension to the car park and this application, submitted this year, includes and replicates that application. It is not known what caused the delay.

Work will now begin as soon as the permit is received but will stop for the duration of the CHOGM and for the Christmas shopping. It will only be in January that a tower crane will be erected.

Work will be done in the afternoons so as to cause minimal disturbance and as the construction will all be in piles and columns roofed by concrete slabs (planki) there will be a minimum of disturbance by concrete mixers and the like.

Work should be concluded by the end of 2016 and in any case must be completed in time for Valletta 2018.

The existing car park will be slightly skewed in that the entrance on the side of the buses will be lengthened so as to take a larger number of cars without them spilling over to the public road. Also the exit will be lengthened and the access of cars exiting on to the public road will be made smoother.

Some structures will be demolished, such as the ticket booth and the structure housing the lifts which will be replaced by a wooden structure. There will be a simple kiosk but the applicant, who had silently added tables and chairs around it, removed them without being told to.

On top of the closed hole and thus on top of the whole car park, a garden will be planted. Designed by a French landscape designer, the garden will have mature trees, mostly indigenous ones, and also some pools.

Architect Ray de Micoli said they would also like to have landmark monuments  and contemporary art at various places in this garden.

There will also be a bridge over part of the redesigned pathways for cars.

An existing tunnel leading to the Yellow Garage, whose existence is known only to few, will not be touched by the development.

Mepa chairman Vince Cassar wondered aloud why the exit could not be through the tunnel at the bottom leading to the Valletta Waterfront. He was told this tunnel is an emergency exit that is also used when there are mass events. But the contract stipulating this is an emergency exit only is drawn up in a Parliamentary motion that cannot be changed unless by another Parliamentary motion.

Originally, the permit had a condition that an air quality test is necessary before the newer parts of the car park can be used. Air will filter downwards through ventilation shafts. But the applicant objected that it is difficult to establish air quality in view of the surrounding heavily-polluted area. So it was agreed to have an air quality test now and another one after one and a half years of operation.

The applicant also argued that the car park will not increase the traffic: on the contrary it will cut down the traffic of those roaming around looking for a parking space.

At the end, the chairman said he now expects the car park to be fully operational without it being left in the dark and without lifts after a certain hour.