Valletta ring road exempt from fee-parking scheme

Motorists will not have to pay to park on the Valletta ring road once the fee-parking scheme is introduced, it emerged yesterday.

This is one of the provisions in an agreement signed by the Union Haddiema Maghqudin and the Office of the Prime Minister yesterday. The agreement also gives public sector employees working in Valletta the possibility to work flexible hours in order to cut the costs of parking in the capital.

The agreement covers the setting up of a committee, that would include government and UHM representatives, to monitor and make recommendations to improve accessibility into Valletta.

The union recalled it had strongly resisted all measures announced in the consultative document Accessibility For Valletta And Floriana. The UHM general council had appointed a sub-committee to analyse the situation and its impact on employees who work in Valletta or Floriana. The union insisted the government had the duty to ensure workers had adequate accessibility to their place of work. It is still unclear when the fee-parking scheme will begin or whether the large number of reserved parking spaces for public service employees will be removed in the process.