FAA calls for key studies before Fort Cambridge decisions

The environment NGO Flimkien ghal Ambjent Ahjar (FAA) said today that the imminent adjudication of the Fort Cambridge (Holiday Inn site) project will be taking place without a traffic management plan and a Social Impact Assessment, even though both were key to the decision-making process.

“A traffic management plan for the area is still being prepared by ADT. In an area which is already often gridlocked at peak hours, the effect of the approximately 1,000 more cars that the project will bring into the area is a key issue,” FAA said.

“Furthermore, a project of these dimensions which has already created so much inconvenience during the excavation phase should be undertaking a Social Impact Assessment (SIA) in order to study how the whole project is going to affect residents, both during the construction as well as later operational phases, and how such impacts can be reduced. This SIA had been repeatedly requested by the Sliema Local Council and the request had been accepted by MEPA. Other projects have been made to prepare a thorough SIA, so why not Fort Cambridge?”

The NGO said the developers' argument that high-rise development is better than intensive low development rings hollow when the area has already reached saturation point, as highlighted in MEPA's Local Plans.

“Such a concentration of projects which are changing every aspect of life in Sliema, require a Strategic Environment Assessment in order to gauge the area's requirements and ability to cope with such massive developments, as well to identify any remedial measures to be taken,” FAA said.