Last week, a planning application for the redevelopment of the Fort Cambridge Barracks site at Tigne into a massive 31-storey hotel was recommended for approval.
It is the latest of a number of high-rises which is proposed to be built in this particular area of Sliema. It joins mega projects such as the largely already built The Point, Townsquare, and the recently approved Fortina hotel as a project of some scale which is set to be built here.
Sliema is one of the localities which has urbanised at the quickest rate on the Maltese islands. The break-neck speed of the tourism industry’s development led to what was initially built as a small seaside town adjoined with the military facilities belonging to the British.
It is natural to expect that a seaside town which is located quite centrally in the island would be one of the prime candidates for expansion, and the development of the latest high-rise at Fort Cambridge is another testament to that.
There is a school of thought when it comes to high-rises which states that there are more benefits to having buildings rise high, rather than having low buildings spread wide in a country like Malta. It’s an agreeable sentiment in part – but it does bring with it one key negative that, when it comes to Sliema (and a couple of other localities), is not being discussed enough.
Such high-rises will increase the population density of the area by many times: meaning that you have more people living in an area, and more people commuting in and out of that area on a daily basis.
This brings new pressures on an infrastructure which – since it was built and planned out prior to high-rises – is not adept to handle them.
That is what is already happening in Sliema.
Commuting to and from the locality is already not the easiest thing in the world, owing to the sheer amount of vehicle traffic which ultimately bottlenecks into single-lane old, winding town roads.
The parking problem is well-documented as well. These projects will all include a certain degree of parking provision, but will it be enough to cater for the increases in traffic that there will be as a result of the project?
Both of these aspects will only likely become worse if nothing to address them is done. The roads situation is of particular concern: we are increasing thousands of trips into Sliema on a daily basis with these projects, but what can be done to adapt the current infrastructure to cater for that?
On parking, should the government in tandem with the local council start to consider introducing a residents parking system like that which exists in Valletta and should the authorities also consider giving Sliema its own hub for certain bus routes in order to encourage people who want to go to the town to not use their cars to do so?
There are also questions on whether more resources will need to be dedicated to street hygiene, whether more resources will need to be funnelled into police enforcement, and whether more green spaces are needed.
These are questions and suggestions which are worth considering now, rather than when the approved or soon to be approved projects mentioned above are built.
It’s time to be proactive and anticipate the problems that may crop up, rather than be reactive and deal with them as they come.