Kindly allow me to reply to the letter by Joe Borg (July 14).

One wonders why a correspondent, and The Times before him, seem intent on (publicly) attacking Floriana local council for responsibilities - and shortcomings - which have nothing to do with the council.

There is no "mystery" whatsoever, in spite of whatever your correspondent said, about the closure of Sarria Street for the Elton John concert. So Floriana local council was not, initially, consulted as to which roads/ streets would be out of bounds for motorists entering Valletta/Floriana.

On May 21, Floriana local council received a copy of the letter sent by the traffic management directorate to Jonastin Zammit where a reference was made to which roads/streets were to be closed to motorists.

This was a slipshod way of doing things by the traffic management directorate. There was no discussion but the mere passing on of information to Floriana local council.

The traffic management directorate could have admitted the above in public.

When Floriana local council wrote to NnG Promotions on May 2, 2003 (KLF 151/03) it only referred to the granaries (and to nothing else) and it approved a request by NnG Promotions for the granaries to be used by telling the concert organisers to respect all the conditions that are expected to be observed in so far as the granaries are concerned.

These are the same conditions which Floriana local council always sets to political parties for the granaries to be used. Even this was missed by your correspondent, who, apparently, is still unaware that, so far as the granaries are concerned, political parties could do whatever they liked before local councils were created.

Your correspondent is, yet again, wrong if he thinks that certain entities cannot overrule the wishes of local government as, for example, is the case with the Malta Environment and Planning Authority. This entity has become quite famous, or rather, notorious, for its blunders in matters concerning Floriana, such as when it indicated that the prospective Independence Arena underground car-park application would have been refused had it been deposited. Mepa did this even though it was aware that an amicable verbal agreement had already been reached in the sense that Floriana local council had decided it would not have opposed the project on condition it would have been provided with a guarantee that the Independence Arena football pitch surface would have remained intact and would always have re-mained at the club's disposal.

With regard to the judicial letter filed against Mepa by the Floriana local council in the First Hall of the Civil Court one can now ask your correspondent, since he seems to be an expert (even though misguided) in Floriana matters why has Mepa remained silent about the issue.

Indeed his rather misguided letter to the press was a misnomer for instead of calling his letter "Silent Floriana council" he might have called it "Silent Mepa".