Standards in Sliema

I recently received a letter probably mailed to many Sliema residents by Joe Saliba, PN general secretary. I would like to make the following comments for the attention of those who are or who should be responsible for our locality.

The letter highlighted that roads are among the priorities. Sliema residents remain very doubtful about this indeed.

Why was part of Rudolph Street, one of Sliema's arterial roads, closed for months and finally reopened, exposing freshly painted white lines but the most shoddy finishing standards? The contractor who resurfaced Rudolph Street, near the kebab shop, went right over the cobbled roundabout, covering half of the cobbles with tarmac!

The drain grilles on Tower Road are not level with the tarmac so one must pay attention not to bump all the way. Blanche Street is in a disastrous state, not to mention all the little streets behind it. Ghar id-Dud Promenade has not yet been upgraded like the rest of the Sliema seafront. Why not? The Qui-si-sana seafront has no railings, presenting pedestrians with a lethal one-storey drop on to the beach below.

We now have to contend with the closure of the busiest part of Rue d'Argens. How long will this be closed for? A foreign friend of mine who loves Malta is puzzled how we go about road works and building sites. He still wonders why such work is not done at night and why such an enormous mess always prevails. The only roads that were resurfaced were done badly and the remaining roads are still in a rotten state! True, a lot has been done, but it has not been done properly and an awful lot still has to be done.

The money being spent on pavements is not being well spent either. Depiro Street, on the side of Manuel Dimech Street, has just received new cement pavements. Again, the most untidy standards are being applied to finish the work that is costing us a lot of money. The pavements near the supermarket in High Street and Ghar il-Lembi were again done up in a very shoddy way without any attention being paid to levels of front door steps so much so that some door steps have been partially covered with cement.

Building sites in Sliema are still very dangerous, sub-standard and unsupervised, causing an incredible nuisance to the residents, not to mention the danger caused by building sites that are not only shabby but also left wide open with enormous gaping holes three storeys down where pedestrians often risk life and limb to get about their locality.

Tower cranes block roads for months, using many parking bays, rather then being erected within the buildings to be dismantled later. For crying out loud, we are in Europe now. Can we not adopt more finishing, safety, cleanliness standards to differentiate ourselves from less fortunate countries? Must piles of dust be left on the roadside just because a building is being erected? There is little, if any control, on building sites. Many sites remain unfinished, such as a block of apartments near Fatima House and the Sliema primary school wing on Melita Street. This list can go on and on for miles.

The ex-Galaxy site is wide open right now. Its brick perimeter wall is shabby and unplastered. The contractor who excavated this site passed through with dozens of trucks every day for weeks on end and by doing so damaged the corner pavement of St Ignatius Junction and Depiro Street that was repaired a while later with a tank of concrete literally tipped over the corner to fill the hole! No kerb stone, no finishing. Why? Who is accountable for this mess? The government? The local council? MEPA? The contractor?

People should start getting things right in both private and public sectors. Self-praise is no recommendation, so stop telling us that you have done a lot or that a lot has been done. Let us assess that and please get on with the lot that still needs to be done to get our tiny locality in shape. Sliema, or Malta for that matter, is not that big!