Action and reaction

Valletta is still an interesting city, despite the way it has been neglected. It oozes history at every corner, starting from the tiny Our Lady of Victory Church, built in 1566, the year of the city's foundation, to the sprawling Sacra Infermeria (the Knights' hospital) at the other end of the city, with the magnificent palace and auberges in between, many of the latter built by Gerolamo Cassar.

Researching Valletta's history, I dipped into Quentin Hughes's The Building of Malta 1530-1795, and reading the chapter "The new city of Valletta", I found some remarkable quotes, which reminded me of what is happening in Malta today.

"In spite of the warm congratulations and promises of assistance, which the defenders (the Order of St John) had received from all parts of Europe, the Council of the Order was by no means reassured about the safety of their position upon Malta, and many members wished to quit the island.

"Money was short for rebuilding the fortifications and there were few soldiers to man them." This was after the Knights had seen off the Turks and La Vallette wanted to reinforce Malta's defences. Birgu and Fort St Michael were considered too low to fortify adequately and the building of a new city on Mount Sceberras was conceived.

Today the situation is rather different; we are not fighting off a warring invader but rather attempting to keep away a peaceful one. And the soldiers are acting as wardens rather than fighters.

We have a problem with illegal immigration and despite assurances of assistance from the European Union, of which we now form part, the help is slow in coming.

Money is short, and although we are not trying to build a new city, we are trying to restructure part of the fortifications, which La Vallette eventually built, and restore some of the crumbling treasures, this time for aesthetic and heritage protection rather than defence reasons.

The first plans in 1558 of "the important Italian architect and military engineer, Bartolomeo Genga... were not carried out".

Then there were other plans by another Italian Baldassare Lanci, who proposed "a far smaller city" than Genga's. That work was also not undertaken and "the proposal was shelved until after the siege of 1565."

Eventually, it was "the experienced architect" Francesco Laparelli, "an assistant to Michaelangelo, sent by Pope Pius V", who built the city. But this after the "indecision of the Grand Master and the hard task he (Laparelli) had in persuading La Vallette not to deviate from the plans he had made".

See what I mean about history repeating itself.

Anyway, the city did finally get built and the knights also built themselves some gardens, to which access to the local people was denied.

Getting back to the 21st century, despite indecision, lack of funds and diverse opinions, some improvement, if sporadic, has been occurring in the city.

Republic Street, formerly Strada San Giorgio and later Strada Reale, was completely repaved and pedestrianised after public consultation.

In Castille Square, another historic building though of a different era (British Colonial) was very successfully renovated and now houses the Stock Exchange.

A few Baroque churches have been renovated and St James Cavalier was successfully renovated to mark the new millennium.

And last but not least, after centuries of neglect, something was finally decided about the Valletta public gardens.

It was probably thanks to the Ombudsman's report on public gardens that the government got moving on rehabilitating our gardens in Valletta. And things did start to move, albeit very slowly.

The Upper and Lower Barracca Gardens were renovated, and Hastings Gardens, named after a British Governor, the Marquess of Hastings (1824-26), described as "a small, attractive city garden set on the bastions of Valletta", on visitmalta.com is at the moment undergoing rehabilitation.

Some public gardens in this country seem to be changing the whole concept of what gardens are supposed to be all about.

When a garden is mentioned, grass, trees, shrubs and borders teeming with flowers, and perhaps a fountain with a pond or two spring to mind.

In short, a verdant, fertile area, made more beautiful with splashes of colourful flora, and that markedly missing ingredient here - bird song. All meant to induce calm and serenity.

I had started writing this column on Thursday after seeing a dreadful picture of a small, new public garden in the paper.

There was one minuscule bush, or tree, surrounded by concrete, and it set me off. It reminded me of this cartoon I once reproduced in this column.

It had an architect on his way to a Planning Authority meeting with a new development model. As he is leaving his office he grabs a tiny model of a tree from his desk. "Mustn't forget the tree" read the caption.

The 'garden' photo also reminded me that I had been meaning to visit Hastings Gardens for a while, since whenever I drove past little seemed to be happening, except that large areas now seemed to be covered in concrete.

While it is understandable that public gardens need to be low-maintenance, they do not need to be turned into more foot path then vegetation. So I grabbed my camera and went to have a proper look at what was going on.

The result of that visit appeared in The Times on Friday. The article provoked some reaction and the MRES Public Relations Officer asked me to visit the site with him that day.

I did not really see much point, as I did not think much would have changed from the previous day, and I was rather busy, but I decided it was only fair to give him the opportunity to air his views.

He felt aggrieved that although photos of the chaos were published, we had not shown any photos of the finished bits, even though I did mention that "there were pockets of finished work" in my write-up.

He insisted on showing me slabs in the bastions, which had been replaced. I explained that I was not the PRO, he was, and if he wanted to write about the project's achievements he was free to do so. I was interested in why the gardens were in such a shambles.

He was also angry because he said the residents were "lying". Actually he said I was lying, until I pointed out that the bits he was referring to were quotes from residents in the area.

Whatever, the article seemed to provoke action as well as reaction. The gardens were teeming with workers on Friday and an angry team of supervisors formed part of the welcoming party.

They seemed to take responsibility for the whole concept, i.e. too much concrete and the design as well as the chaos. And they were very put out that I had not asked for their opinion.

Well, I would have done had they been around, but I only came across a few tourists, several other people walking through, a couple of residents and separate groups of youngsters sitting on the bastions.

Not a relaxing sight. I am terrified when I see someone in a dangerous situation. I tried to convince one group that they were being rather reckless. But you know the young always think they are immortal.

Anyway, apart from the knocked over live tree, the photo of which appeared on Friday, everything else which appeared was exactly the same. The tree was the only thing missing.

The workers' supervisors were angry that The Times did not show photos of finished parts and they denied that no workers had been there for three months.

The fact that a resident, who overlooks the gardens, had not seen them might have been because they were working in another part of the gardens, they explained.

Besides, it seems the workers do not just work on this project, but they get called away to other work within the Works Department.

The PRO insisted that they have an average of 10 people on site from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. from Monday to Friday, except when they are called away I suppose.

I was there between 1.30 and 2.30 p.m.

Residents might not know that the current workforce have only been involved in the project since January last year, I was told.

Adding that the work on the outer walls, which started about fourp years ago by Kalaxlokk workers, had been abandoned.

The Landscaping Consortium had undertaken the chopping of trees and the workers were told they were dead trees.

It certainly did not seem like the consortium were also keeping any eye on how the plants and trees were being treated.

One of the supervisors took exception to my use of the word rubbish, because he claimed it was construction waste! And he said they were saving it for recycling.

Another could not understand my concern that conifers were half buried in sand and other building material.

But I think I finally convinced him it was not a good idea, and he said he was going to do something about moving the material away from the trees.

I was told the work on the gardens would be finished by the end of June, if all goes well another added.

I did appreciate that the recent rain could have held things up, but there was still no excuse for the excessive amounts of dumped construction waste and the indiscriminate way material was dumped with no regard to the trees and other vegetation.

And I still think they could plan things better and finish one part completely and then move on to the next.

It will be interesting to see whether the hive of activity I witnessed on Friday will be maintained in the weeks to come.

phansen@timesofmalta.com