Proposals for a new belvedere and refurbished playground near the Great Siege Bell War Memorial on Quarry Wharf Street in Valletta are currently awaiting government funding, Valletta mayor Alfred Zammit told The Malta Independent on Sunday.
A brand new playground near St Elmo Place, off Xprun Road, is also awaiting funding.
The local council has further plans to refurbish the playground in Valletta on Marsamxett road.
These project plans were initiated by the Valletta local council and form part of its initiative to provide more public open spaces for both locals and tourists so as to improve the quality of life in Malta.
The new belvedere will replace an impromptu car park that can host approximately eight cars.
Though understanding the limited amount of free parking available in Valletta, Zammit said that the local council has other project proposals underway that seek to tackle this issue, such as turning the ring road around Valletta into a way to allow for a fishbone parking system.
The siege bell was cast on 10 February 1992 by the world’s largest bellfounders John Taylor & Co. Founders of Loughborough England. A Latin inscription from Psalm 140 Obumbrasti Super Caput Meum In Die Belli MCMXL-MCMXLIII is engraved on the bell’s mulley groove that translates to You cast thy shadow upon my head during the time of war 1940-1943.
The landscape around the Great Siege Bell is part of the Castille bastion, underlying the Lower Barrakka Gardens. Its location marks the city’s end point.
Zammit told this newsroom that the Valletta local council has been pledging to be allocated a higher amount of yearly funds. Seeing as local council funds are calculated on the locality’s population size, Valletta, despite being the capital city, receives fewer funds than several other larger towns like Mosta and ends up going into debt every year.
He lamented that the capital city should be treated with much more respect and that with greater funds, the Council would be able to initiate many other project ideas to embellish the city as it deserves.