As it happened, I got to know of the government's plans for the Valletta Suq a day or two before they were made public and my reaction then is the same as the one I will be writing today.

The Opposition has raised other concerns but I will not be writing about them today. Nor do I have anything against Arkadia: like most people who go to Gozo on daytrips or short breaks, I seem to gravitate towards their flagship store in Victoria. Besides, they have other outlets around in Malta.

My objections are two-fold and they are based on a presentation by Chris Briffa held at the Lily Agius Gallery in Sliema some three years ago, a presentation that was the culmination of two years research. I had written about this in its time.

At that presentation Mr Briffa told us that the Valletta Suq we see today is a truncated building: a World War II bomb that damaged the Palace as well, broke off the part of the Suq on the Merchants Street side.

In respect to the history of the site, Mr Briffa did not suggest rebuilding the part that has gone missing, but creating it in a virtual manner so that virtually the building once again rejoins the Merchants Street street alignment.

I asked and I was told that there will not be any rebuilding done in this respect. With all due proportionality, it's exactly what has been done to the Opera House: what was destroyed by the war remains lost.

Secondly, the Chris Briffa project envisioned turning the Valletta Suq into an art museum. There are spaces, he explained, where artists and artisans could exhibit their wares and these spaces included areas that today are neglected, like the corridors at the sides and even the basement area.

It could be a vibrant, fun place where people could wander at ease, perhaps sit and eat at one of the restaurants on site, and be entertained by street musicians both during the day and at night. The side facing the Palace was to become an space with steps where people could sit and be entertained.

It would be another attraction added to Valletta and help remove the stigma that when offices close, Valletta becomes a dead city.

Much has been said and written since 2012 and some developments are slowly maturing. In 2012, there was no sign of any new development as regards art museums. Since then, there was the Auberge d'Ítalie saga which is slowly, perhaps too slowly, becoming the National Museum of Fine Arts and some noises have been made regarding a future Museum of Contemporary Art.

Still, had this Chris Briffa vision been accepted, perhaps it could have been offered to see if any entrepreneur would venture to turn the rather rundown and neglected Suq into an arts centre. The powers that be chose not to go down that road: it's not sustainable, I was told.

Instead, a market in Madrid was mentioned as a template: the San Miguel market and Arkadia will be ploughing money to restore the building and to create a Maltese version of the San Miguel.

The Socialist government does not have a good track record when it comes to supermarkets: remember the supermarket at Beltissebh that was forced to close down because people did not see it as a good alternative to the Suq tal-Belt?

In its heyday, the Suq tal-Belt catered for a vastly superior population base, when Valletta was populated by some 20,000 people if not more, rather than the few thousands who today reside in the city. I remember it well and my uncle was a meat seller there.

Will the shops and restaurants that will be created there survive the competition with the existing shops and restaurants in Valletta, and the other way round? Only time will tell. When the Nationalist government restored the Suq and gave it back to the outlet owners, the prospects looked good but the result is today's air of neglect and emptiness.

I still say, however, that art, innovation and a geniality could be a far more interesting prospect. We may be misreading the people if we think that all they want is more and more shops, as if there are not enough shops all over the island as it is. And maybe we are misreading the people more when we think that art is not sustainable.

And I say this while wishing Arkadia all the best.

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