In recent years, Ta’ Qali has seen some development in terms of the US embassy complex and upgrading of the national football stadium.

But in yesterday’s session of Mepa hearings, the Ta’ Qali Crafts Village action plan was put on hold, once again.

The application, which was considered by the Mepa board yesterday, was an amendment to an amendment to the plan and was submitted earlier this year.

But once again, the process ground to a halt. The Crafts Village is a mess and is a decrepit haphazard collection of shops that, more often than not, do not even sell genuine Maltese products.

Government after government has declared that the area was to be refurbished and regenerated, yet time after time, it remains the same.

Basically, the Crafts Village is housed in what used to be the RAF Ta’ Qali station that sustained heavy bombing in World War II. Some, or many, of the outlets are found in old wartime Nissen huts, although some have had additions and changes made to them.

There was a certain urgency about the matter because this project is being lined up for ERDF funding and a decision in this regard will be taken on 8 July.

But the Mepa board was not impressed.

Some outlets have upgraded at their own expense, but the roads are bad, road signs are poor and there just seems to be a general atmosphere of deterioration.

But apart from the bad state of the area, the merchandise and experience on offer is very below par. There are a couple of decent outlets, Mdina Glass and Bristow Potteries, amongst others. But there are many more which just peddle cheap and tacky souvenirs which are made in China and are often rip offs. We keep speaking about marketing Product Malta, but we need a holistic product to offer tourists, and the Crafts Village is one of them.

For starters, the roads need to be resurfaced. Adequate parking needs to be offered and the area needs to be serviced properly by public transport. Once all that is taken care of, a concerted effort to improve the quality of what is on offer really needs to be made, with minimum standards and perhaps even a strict ‘made in Malta’ requirement. If this is not done, then quite frankly, tourists just have no reason to even want to go there.