Over the past few years, Malta has advanced in leaps and bounds when it comes to the restoration of cultural heritage.

There are of course dedicated bodies which get budgets to do so; we will not mention them one by one as it will inevitably lead to some omission or another. Each and every one of these organisations deserves praise for their dedication towards the mission of restoring cultural gems to the condition that befits their stature.

Private fund donors and the government also deserve a mention for either forking money out of their own pockets and, in the government’s case, allocating a budget from public funds to do so.

The projects over the years have been many in number. Just to mention a few as examples – the various langue churches in Valletta, the purchase of land around temples to prevent encroachment, the restoration of tapestries from St John’s, the restoration of painted works of art, restoration of military installations from the time of the Knights of St John to those of the British period and many, many more.

This is all positive and we should not only look at it from the tourism point of view. We should also look at it from a local point of view in the sense that we, citizens of Malta, can enjoy the riches which we have been left in custody of. We must also remember that we are custodians of these gems which can, should and are, enjoyed by people from all over the world.

Of course, the restoration of these sites does not come cheap. First of all, one must invest in education to create the necessary expertise for restoration projects, and there is also the physical cost to actually get down to cutting stones and placing them (for example) on top of weathered and eroded pieces of the puzzle.

While they have not been involved in each and every project, this newspaper feels that there are some unsung heroes that deserve a mention. These people are employees within the Resources and Infrastructure Ministry who are tasked to bring plans to fruition. There have been many examples, and again, we will not be mentioning them one by one. But just to give an example, we can point towards the restoration of the Semaphore Communications Tower in Gharghur, which was built by the British when they ruled Malta.

Thirty years ago this tower might have been looked at in much the same way as we would view an analogue switchboard building today – old, outdated and not much of an attraction at all.

But times change and with that change comes a nostalgia and a desire to restore these old (but not ancient) buildings back to working order. Of course, Renzo Piano’s plans for City Gate are on everyone’s mind and rightly so. We are sure that the MRRA employees will also have a hand in this work and again, we should remember that in this case manna does not fall from heaven. There will be people, a good number of them who will be involved in, excuse the pun, the ground work to make designs spring to life. It is all well and good to praise designers and people who plan and direct restoration work, but we should always spare a thought for those who actually make dreams become reality. A pat on the back, you deserve it.