It was indeed surprising to learn from the last edition of the Gozo Business Chamber publication, that this body was entirely ignored by the competent authorities in the Victoria’s bus terminus project. The lack of consultation with this important Gozitan organisation that could offer sound proposals concerning this development is indeed incomprehensible. I understand that from such consultations can obviously crop up a sound platform for the submission of vital recommendations. This lack of consultation proves the fact that the present administration appears to have connived what really engulfed the initial stages of the Mġarr passenger terminal. I wonder whether this move was also repeated in the case of the Gozo Ministry which again strives incessantly to upgrade our island.

Since my youth I have endorsed the maxim that Gozo’s projects should invariably involve exhaustive consultation with local competent bodies. At this instance springs to mind the establishment of the defunct Gozo Civic Council that was abolished round 50 years ago by a Labour administration. I still recall my involvement in our city’s civic council to introduce as a first to our island a good number of flats at Victoria’s Taċ-Ċawla neighbourhood as well as the choice of the present site for our General Hospital.

Notwithstanding the fact that my youth has now been shadowed by decades, I still recall the blunder when Victoria’s first bus terminus was erected. At that time the government planners felt that the area should be filled with debris, part of which emanated from the enlargement of St George’s Square, in order to align the floor of the terminus with the adjacent Main Gate Street. Now that this area is being redeveloped, today’s planners should take into immediate consideration the entire excavation of this site, in order to regale Victoria not only with a smaller bus terminus at street level, but also with a sheltered public car park under its floor. I am suggesting a smaller terminus for I feel that half the present area can easily cater for our island’s needs. Whoever has been to London and had a chance to visit London’s Victoria train station undoubtedly agrees that the bus terminus at this popular junction is far smaller than the one Gozitans used beforehand. This notwithstanding, it copes with the needs of a far larger public.

My proposal for a sheltered carpark stems from the fact that our city really lacks adequate parking facilities and is deprived of any public sheltered carpark. The glaring absence of car parks at Victoria becomes more evident during the summer months and during several winter breaks when Victoria is normally infested to its brim with Maltese and foreign visitors. Notwithstanding civic insistence ad nauseam no remedial action appears to be in the offing. In fact, attempts by a couple of past Victoria local councils and the cathedral parish to introduce two carparks at the shade of the Gozo Citadel, have also proved futile. Luckily so far both parks have been left operating but at a stroke of Malta Environment and Planning Authority’s (Mepa’s) pen they will cease functioning.

Notwithstanding the classic irony that Valletta’s bastions have been permitted to embrace a couple of public carparks as well as Valletta bus terminus, in the case of Victoria, our bastions appear to deserve inviolable protection. These double standards are really inexplicable. I augur that Mepa avails itself of the impending development and rectifies the blunder that engulfed Victoria’s first bus terminus.

■ Paul M. Cassar

Victoria, Gozo