Transferring pollution to Qui-Si-Sana (1)

The gist of Mayor Albert Bonello Dupuis's article (January 19) was clearly one of favouring shoppers, even non-Slimisi ones, at the expense of his Sliema residents.

His solution to the exhaust pollution problem in the shopping centre of Bisazza Street is to transfer it to the residential area of Qui-Si-Sana so that shoppers can have a "proper shopping experience" (whatever that means) and not breathe exhaust fumes for a couple of hours. However, it does not seem to bother him if residents and their children breathe these fumes instead, with the important difference that the latter will be breathing them 24 hours a day rather than a few hours a week. Shoppers, even those outside Sliema, appear to be more important to him than the residents he represents.

This pollution problem for Qui-Si-Sana residents will be compounded several times over with the proposed construction of the Qui-Si-Sana underground car park plus commercial outlets, with its entrance/exit right in front of the homes of Mayor Bonello Dupuis's constituents. Despite the pedestrianisation of Bisazza Street, Qui-si-Sana seafront is going to remain a two-way single carriageway road. Assuming the car park to be a success, which is doubtful, and once the three major projects of Tigné Point, Fort Cambridge Area and Town Square are functioning, traffic congestion, especially at the entrance/exit to the car park, will be mind-boggling and the exhaust pollution this will cause will be a major health hazard for hundreds of residents in the area. Does this not concern the good mayor and the PN majority on the Sliema council?

Apart from a major health hazard which this car park will cause, it is not even needed in the first place as I have explained recently in this newspaper. The nearby car park at High Street is never full and once the Tigné Point, Town Square and Chalet projects are operating there will be some 2,000 public car park spaces all bunched up in Sliema's eastern edge.

An intregal part of the Qui-si-Sana underground car park (7,000 square metres of its space) is being devoted to several commercial outlets such as a restaurant, cafereria and sandwich bar as well as a street-level kiosk. There are plenty of such outlets already in Sliema. They will be even more closer-by when the above-mentioned projects are completed. Why should Qui-Si-Sana residents be regaled with even more of them?

As if that were not bad enough, the Qui-Si-Sana garden itself is going to be dismembered by the developer's plan to have it split-level in order to serve his commercial outlets immediately below the original garden. The garden will lose its unique wide open space where children can play in safety and the elderly relax in a pollution-free environment, and most of the commercial outlets will be level with the now lowered part of the garden, resulting in noise and odour of food being suffered by both users of the garden and residents.

Mayor Bonello Dupuis waxes lyrical over the car park itself but conveniently fails to mention the fundamental aspect of its commercial outlets and that the garden is going to be dismembered. Why did he omit these two important aspects of the project from his article? Is it because he is in favour of them?

Either way he should have the courage of his convictions and state them publicly before the March council election, as should his five PN colleagues on the council. Their constituents expect it of them.