Renzo Piano’s €80 million design could soon be bookending bootlegged copies of ‘The Full Monty’ and other assorted trinkets if the government goes ahead with plans to relocate the hawkers’ market to Ordnance Street.
Yesterday evening in parliament, economy minister Chris Cardona said that relocating to Ordnance Street is being considered, with no other alternatives in the pipeline.
The restricted size of the Street would mean that some stalls would have to cross Republic Street, ending up next to the new parliament building.
PN MP Jason Azzopardi said that Labour had signed off on these plans weeks before the election, without consulting shop owners.
“The hawkers had a written commitment from Labour, and a plan signed by Joseph Muscat and Joe Zrinzo, the hawkers’ representative. The representative asked the Nationalist party whether it was willing to make a similar commitment, but we made it clear to them that our redline was the corner of Ordnance Street, and the market should in no way cross Republic Street,” Dr Azzopardi explained.
Dr Azzopardi also said that Labour had promised the hawkers parking next to Hastings Garden.
“This government has shown huge contempt for our National institutions and this is yet another example of this. We may have lost the hawkers’ vote but we are proud that we did not compromise our principles. People travel from all over the world to admire Renzo Piano’s designs and nowhere in Europe is a hawkers’ market situated next to a National parliament,” Dr Azzopardi said.
Sources at the office of the prime minister told this paper that one establishment owner in Ordnance Street, Carlo Seychell, was so incensed by the prospect of having the market set up in front of his pub that he beat a path straight to the prime ministers door, demanding that the plans be redrawn in order for the market to begin half way down the Street.
Mr Seychell denied having done so.
Valletta mayor Alexiei Dingli said that the market will shift to its new location in December, so long as the Parliament project is finished on schedule.