Council plans parking space for every home

Residents of St Julians may wake up one morning soon to find they have been blessed; parking will no longer be a problem because the local council plans to reserve a parking space for every home.

The mayor of St Julians, an area of heavy traffic, told The Times the scheme will be launched shortly and will be fine-tuned in the initial two months, after which it will become a permanent arrangement.

"The two-month period should help us identify any teething problems but the scheme will then become permanent. This is not a measure that the council is introducing because elections are approaching," Peter Bonello said.

Asked whether the council had looked at the impact on the business community, Mr Bonello said this aspect was being taken into consideration. A number of parking bays will be available for parking for 90 minutes.

"In this way we believe that more drivers will actually be able to park when running errands, as more space will be available. As things stand, many cars just take up parking spaces for a whole day. We believe residents should be given priority."

He said the parking spaces not reserved for residents can be used by visitors, some on a time-controlled basis and others for unlimited time.

Asked about the "performance mark" of 60 per cent which Opposition Leader Alfred Sant has given to the council, Mr Bonello said he felt it was an insult not only to him but also to Labour councillors.

"At St Julians, the Nationalist Party has four councillors and the MLP three. We work hand in hand as a team and for us the locality comes first and foremost. We hardly ever took a vote on any issue and decide by consensus. As a council we have done a lot.

"We do not look at who lives where before deciding about starting a project. With government help, we are constructing a garden, swings and a five-a-side pitch at the housing estate.

"We have resurfaced 22 roads, complete with services running underground and new pavements. The council has a new, more accessible office, we have a free circular mini van in St Julians that the elderly and others find very convenient, we organised computer courses and activities for the elderly and the quarterly magazine is a self-funding one that does not cost the council a cent. So it is not as if the council has been laid back. A lot of construction work is going on in the area and this creates a lot of headaches.

"We have three clerks, an executive secretary and a customer care officer working for the council. We received 387 complaints last year, of which 356 were solved. Thirty- one are still pending, but for some complaints we would require the services of others," Mr Bonello explained.

"St Julians is a tourist locality and we have to pay to have streets washed and swept more frequently. Traffic is our biggest problem and we hope that the parking scheme will prove to be part of the solution," Mr Bonello said.

In a bid to cut down on the number of refuse trucks that tour the area because restaurants have private contractors, the council plans to negotiate with them so that the service would be provided for a fee by the council. "It would be cheaper for them too in this way," Mr Bonello said.

One of the priorities of a new council would be the removal of old wires from façades, building wooden bridges over the valley and installing benches and other amenities so that people could go and enjoy the place, Mr Bonello said.