A long time ago, it was a quiet little fishing village. Its natural beauty and the beautiful view of St Paul’s islands in the distance then made it the ideal place where to set up a summer home. Fish was plentiful, the waters crystal clear and the breeze off the sea cooled the jangled summer nerves.

In the sixties and seventies, builders and businessmen saw the tourism boom that was coming and a few small hotels began to spring up. Shoddy workmanship (for which we are paying today) in terms of infrastructure was the order of the day as the government of the time cut corners to increase value for money in increasing the amount of drains, sewers and water and electricity connections.

In the 1980s, it became the star performer of the Maltese tourist product as Qawra grew alongside Bugibba. At the times, the buildings were modern and uniform. Apartment complexes, flats, hotels, aparthotels, huge hotels, small hotels, good hotels, bad hotels… the area saw it all.

But in the days of big hair and oddly mismatched styles and colours, the tourists flocked. The Brits, loved it. You could eat freshly caught fish and chips with a woeful locally produced freeze dried wine for about £2.50 a head. You would have an impeccable and friendly waiter serve you and then you could head off for a cocktail and a discotheque shimmy. Life was good then.

St Paul’s Bay, Bugibba and Qatar soldiered on into the 90’s. A wreck was sunk there for diving and in 1996 the Labour government did a decent job at giving the place a much needed facelift despite not having spent all that much.

But time was clearly catching up with the area. There were houses and flat built in the 50s and 60s which stood, and still stand, against buildings slapped together with spit and mortar in the 70s, 80s and 90s. Driving through the place is literally like a form of time travel. You seem to go from one time zone to the next, forward a few decades and back again.

The pavements are in a sorry state, the roads are terrible and the planning side of things, well, let us not go there. It is dirty. Many of the establishments (though not all) are not worthy to be part of our tourist industry. Is it no coincidence that Maltese people do not frequent the area? Should that not alert us to the fact that it is a shambles?

A shambles it is, and it is deserving of more. Perhaps it is time to give a Mepa task force the chance to dream. Perhaps if they were allowed to dream up a new vision for the area with no restrictions, we might be able to really do something with the place. As it stands, it’s terrible. Tourism is dying a slow atrophic death in that part of Malta.