The Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi and his Parliamentary Secretary responsible for Public Dialogue Chris Said recently met the public at the beautiful Howard Gardens in Rabat to hear suggestions regarding the development of local councils.

One of the topics which these two honourable gentlemen should look at is the time when the local councils lose total control of their area of governance.

During the two or three weeks before the village/town feast, the committees responsible for setting up the street furniture for the feast such as flag poles, statues and the like take over total control of the area and act in the way they deem fit.

The local council has no say as to which roads are closed for decoration purposes, a barrier is put across the road and every driver wanting to go through has to just grin and bear it.

He or she have to either reverse down a one way street or make a huge detour to get home. The same can be said when main streets are closed for more than 24 hours in preparation for a street party.

Any Tom, Dick and Harry would have had to pay for a warden if they needed a crane or some other equipment if they needed to temporarily close the road but in the case of feasts this does not exist.

Local councils do a lot of good work yet they do not look after it. Poles and the like are allowed to be dug right in the centre of parking bays, thus restricting parking and putting traffic control in tilt for those days.

Another aspect is that these committees tie ropes and wires and hammer nails and screw rawl bolts into public and private buildings without any permission asked for or given.

It seems that for the days of the feast every façade, balcony or window becomes public property.

The solution is easy as the local council of each town and village should call the feasts committee about six months before the actual feast day.

They should then discuss the days and times of any road closure where this is needed and the residents are duly informed. Newspaper adverts would also help.

They should agree about where poles should be dug up thus preventing parking bays from being put out of use for so long. They should be made to seek written permission from every house owner/occupier for anything to be stuck to their walls and finally what should be studied is whether all the street furniture that is put up is really necessary today.

Many of the decorations have been placed in the same spot for the last 50 or 60 years but that was a time when there was only a few motor vehicles and horse- drawn carts. The situation has changed drastically now and amends should be made.

I would like to say that for the last two months, I purposely went to seven different parishes to see whether the same situation occurred there and low and behold, total control was in the hands of the feasts committee.

This letter is no slur on the young and not so young men who work so hard in the scorching sun to decorate the streets in time for the feast but it is a question of programming, organisation and giving heed to the residents' proposals.

This is why every local council should take the lead and not be afraid to ask for change when this is necessary.

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