Marsaskala residents have been left fearing a proposed regeneration of their locality, with a saga involving a so-called Regeneration Committee set up by the local council initially as a transport and infrastructure sub-committee and made up by businessmen with an interest in the locality’s square in particular still fresh in their minds.

Residents told The Malta Independent on Sunday that the Marsaskala Regeneration Committee was made up of individuals with self-serving business interests in the locality, and how they had opened talks with state entities for massive changes to areas such as Marsaskala’s main square behind their backs as residents, and without informing the local council itself.

The committee in question was set up in August 2020, with council minutes showing that it was set out to be a ‘Sub-Committee on Infrastructure’ intended to “help a lot with communications with Infrastructure Malta, Transport Malta, and the Water Services Corporation.”

The minutes show that the council had agreed with the formation of the sub-committee.

The committee was chaired by Ray Abela – a candidate for the Labour Party in the upcoming general election on the third district, which includes Marsaskala.

It was then made up of Eric Abela, Joseph Farrell, Angele Abela, and the locality’s mayor Mario Calleja.

Eric Abela is related to the committee’s chairperson, and owns a building at the edge of the square – a building which he intends to turn into a boutique hotel. A planning application to this end was approved in 2019.

Joseph Farrell meanwhile owns a kiosk called Tiffany’s, which is placed in the garden across from the Marsaskala parish church, while Angele Abela was – at the time – the secretary to Owen Bonnici at the Education Ministry. She eventually resigned from the committee, and has remained working with Bonnici at his new ministry.

The role of this sub-committee however, seems to have gone beyond its stated remit of simply helping with communication.

Residents claimed that they feel that some had a personal interest in seeing the layout of the square changed, telling this newsroom that the plans that the committee had drafted would see the square pedestrianized and the boats removed from the area and placed on a purposely built hard-standing facility in another part of the bay.

Documents seen by this newsroom meanwhile also show that the committee had entered into discussions with state entities like Infrastructure Malta without advising the local council – with the issue being brought up in a number of council meetings.

The minutes of a meeting on 17 December last year show one councillor – Nationalist John Baptist Camilleri – saying that he had attended a meeting of the committee and that it was clear that the sub-committee – which he pointed out was, in name, not made out to be a sub-committee at all – had discussed important matters and even carried out meetings with entities without advising the council.

Camilleri told councillors in the meeting that the committee had discussed important matters such as the regeneration of the village square, the relocation of trees, and even a yacht marina amongst other things – with the councillor wondering whether the committee members had “ulterior motives.”

“These things were never discussed in a council meeting, and we don’t even know exactly what they are planning,” the council minutes quotes Camilleri as having said.

The locality’s deputy mayor – Labour councillor Janice Falzon – also questioned why certain members were marketing themselves as “chairman” of this said regeneration committee on social media, and why they were autonomously meeting entities and departments without the approval or involvement of the local council.

To all this criticism, Marsaskala mayor Mario Calleja – who was the person who appointed the committee in the first place – simply said that the committee had been acting out of “enthusiasm” and not out of any malice or with any intention to disregard the council.

Residents however were up in arms in protest, and the mayor had to disband the committee – however when disbanding it, he said that the fact that the committee does not exist anymore doesn’t mean that these people cannot work on the regeneration of the square and of the locality in general.

Residents’ ideas were presented to the Marsaskala local council, but the council simply resolved that a public call would be issued and the ideas can be submitted there - leaving residents fearing that this will be used to legitimise the plans drawn up by the regeneration committee.

These fears took a step closer to being realised when the government this week announced that they were opening  a ‘design contest’ for the regeneration of Marsaskala – this essentially being an open call for ideas for a rejig in how the locality, in particular its central areas, looks.

The proposals must include a raft of considerations and experts, with a design team formulated on the basis of expertise in a raft of fields such as architectural design, urban design, landscape architecture, lighting design, and road engineering among other things.

“We don’t have the means to come together and find contractors, all the required experts and the finances to formally put our ideas forward: but we do have the ideas,” a resident told The Malta Independent on Sunday.

The deadline for submissions as part of the Marsaskala Design Contest is 9 September 2021, with a decision expected to be taken later in that month. 

Residents will likely be on tenterhooks awaiting the outcome of it, hoping that their fears of a business-fuelled regeneration do not come to be.