After being shown their proposed new skyline at Tignè Point once the Fort Cambridge project is completed, shocked Sliema residents showed all the resolve to react against the development.

The residents were shocked when Martin Debono, an architect specialising in urban development, gave a presentation on the latest designs he got hold of from the Malta Environment and Planning Authority.

Mr Debono, a Labour councillor in Sliema, showed the residents a montage of Tignè Point as seen from Marsamxett Harbour portraying the proposed multi-storey buildings. The location is to be transformed into something resembling cosmopolitan centres such as New York or Shanghai.

The Fort Cambridge project is a plan to build apartments on the site previously occupied by the Hotel Crowne Plaza.

Astrid Vella from Flimkien ghal Ambjent Ahjar said Sliema’s population density currently stood at over 10,000 persons per square kilometre “close to New York’s and Delhi’s”. She said Sliema did not have the infrastructure to cope with the present density, let alone for the additional occupants of the proposed 386 apartments at Fort Cambridge. To prove her case, Ms Vella said that for the past seven years, Tignè Street residents have not had any water provision between 11pm and 9am, while during the day, water did not reach residences above the fifth floor at the Strand.

During the meeting, called by the Qui-Si-Sana Residents Association, acting president Chris Vassallo said the meeting was called after Mepa was expected to rush into the development approval “like it did in the case of the Sant’Antnin Recycling Plant”. However, Mepa’s board meeting was postponed.

He said it has become normal for Mepa, in cases involving big-scale development, to rush things and call for meetings on the preceding day. Mr Vassallo also condemned Mepa’s decision to not draw up an environment impact assessment, among others, on the grounds that shadows cast by the 14 to 22 storey high buildings were no different from the current four to six storeys.

Apart from the indignation at the lack of an infrastructure to support the eventual completion of the projects, the residents also expressed concern about the traffic which would develop in the area. The peninsula currently houses the MIDI and Town Square projects, while a car park at Tignè Gardens and the Fort Cambridge project have been proposed.

Architect Debono illustrated the traffic plan as it currently stands, in which traffic coming from Gzira going to St Julian’s would pass along Tower Road. Traffic coming from St Julian’s would have to go round Tignè, go down the bridge built outside the MIDI project and move along the Strand. The association calculated that traffic would increase to an extent that fumes would pose a threat to residents’ health.

As residents put their views on the best course of action to undertake to stop the development, AD councillor Michael Briguglio “revealed” that the question was essentially a political one. Mr Briguglio, speaking of their MPs, urged residents to “make them afraid of not getting re-elected.” Ms Vella urged all Sliema residents to unite as this issue affected all citizens. She encouraged them to put pen to paper and write in the newspapers to the EU Commission, which will be visiting Malta in the coming weeks to review the country’s state of the environment.

AD chairman Harry Vassallo said he was not surprised at how things were going on at Tignè since, he said, developers only cared about getting richer. However, he was disgusted at the way the government seemed to be involved in all similar projects. He claimed that the government wanted the revenue generated by such projects to save the economy, at the cost of residents’ health. Dr Vassallo told the meeting that such development was “an act of violence, where people don’t count and are expendable.”

He urged residents to keep developers and the government busy in court by signing individual writs of injunction, bear with the association and support other residents as the project was interlinked with others, such as the one at Pender Place.