St Paul’s Bay is set to see a regeneration plan aiming to lift the locality out of the 70s and 80s national touristic model it was based on, Tourism Minister, Clayton Bartolo said on Friday.
The project is set to tackle the “connotations and taboos of criminality” the locality has been stuck with, through sustainable investments that beautify the locality and accommodate both the multi-ethnic residential community as well as the touristic market, he said when addressing the media today.
A committee established from among various stakeholders is being set up for this project with the focus being more open public spaces, traffic and rubbish management and increased security.
All plans will see that the local council will be at the centre of the project’s administration.
St Paul’s Bay houses Malta’s largest residential population with an estimated 45,000 residents that has not seen any substantial investment, apart from the national aquarium, in at least 24 years, said St Paul’s Bay mayor Alfred Grima.
Therefore, teenagers have not witnessed any beautification of their neighbourhood, but rather were subject to continual badly managed building developments that have resulted in a “current disaster” that needs to be addressed, he stated.
One result of this lack of management is the repeated damage caused to streets by private developers as well as the lack of parking spaces, he said. It is only now that these issues will start to be tackled.
In order to achieve a complete zone regeneration − and not a one-off project like the national aquarium that does not result in a spin over to a holistic regeneration of the locality − multi ministerial diverse projects are being planned to tackle both the social, environmental and economic sector of the locality, Malta Tourism Authority (MTA) chairman Gavin Gulia said.
“You cannot have an economically strong residential or touristic sector without taking into account the social and environmental aspect of a locality and vice versa,” Minister Bartolo concluded.
Funds for the project are yet to be decided upon once the project plans are complete.