The NGO Moviment Graffitti is encouraging its followers to attend the Planning Authority's Planning Board's hearing on Thursday, 16 July, and make their voices heard. In this hearing, "the Planning Board will decide on whether to sanction 20 illegally built padel courts and allow the construction of an additional ten at Manoel Island's entrance," the NGO said.

People are permitted to attend the hearing remotely, i.e., online, if they register through the following link.

In a Facebook post, posted by Moviment Graffitti and the Facebook page created specifically for the Manoel Island campaign against the MIDI concession, "Manoel Island: Post Għalina," it was said that the entire process surrounding this PA application for padel courts on Manoel Island and its recommendation for approval "grossly undermine Government's plan to turn Manoel Island into a public park after reclaiming it from MIDI after 26 years."

Moviment Graffitti observed that this hearing was originally scheduled to take place during the same week as this year's general election, in late May, before being deferred at the eleventh hour.

Moviment Graffitti stressed that these padel courts are "illegal developments" and the man responsible for their construction is the President of Gżira FC, businessman Sharlon Pace. The NGO observed how Pace "has admitted a personal business interest in the local padel industry," as well as how the CEO of the Planning Authority, Johann Buttigieg, had played alongside him in the Charter Club Cup padel tournament in Pace's own IK Padel Village in Pembroke - which was also built illegally and later sanctioned by the PA, the statement added.

In this regard, Moviment Graffitti said that perhaps this personal interest in the sport by Buttigieg explains how the PA's case officer too just two days "to brush off the scores of objections filed by the public and recommend Pace's illegal Manoel Island complex for approval."

The NGO stated that "a commercial padel complex is not the football ground the Gżira community has been asking for. Nor is it compatible with the vision of Manoel Island as a non-commercial space for public wellbeing which the public has expressed both through our campaign and through Project Green's public consultation exercise."

Concluding this statement, it questioned what sanctioning 20 illegally developed padel courts on Manoel Island, plus allow an additional ten to be constructed, would mean to Prime Minister Robert Abela, "who just two months ago proclaimed Manoel Island public with such pomp and with Lands Minister Owen Bonnici by his side."

"The visions he has been feeding the public of a national park will go up in smoke if the PA gives Pace a permanent right to the first 6,700 square metres of Manoel Island," Moviment Graffitti said about how this PA application would affect the Prime Minister, politically speaking, if sanctioned and approved.

The NGO is calling upon Prime Minister Abela "to honour the promise he made to the people and fulfil his responsibility to ensure that promise becomes a reality." It also hopes that Abela reminds the PA that its obligation lies towards the community.

Those behind the Manoel Island campaign will be following this Thursday's hearing and will continue to defend "the public's need for a Manoel Island that serves common good first, and not commercial interest." It concluded that to serve the common good, fines alone are not sufficient and that "this deceitful planning application must be refused outright, not given the Government's blessing of permanence."