€2.5m can save Fort St Elmo

Important emergency work could be carried out on Fort St Elmo to prevent it from further deterioration using a "mere fraction" of the funding allocated to other Valletta projects, according to a heritage NGO.

It would take €2.5 million to intervene before the fort's ancient fabric is lost for good, Edward Said, a Fondazzjoni Wirt Artna member and conservation architect who is on a crusade to save the fort, said.

While the proposed extension of the St John's Co-Cathedral museum, which would cost more, was an important project, its treasures would not perish without such extension, Mr Said maintained.

But the gem of a fort has been left on the backburner since the 1970s and the monument continues to decay rapidly. It is in an alarming state - "touch-and-go" - while vandalism and pillage are the order of the day, Mr Said pointed out.

He recently visited the site with foreign architects who were "utterly shocked" at what they saw.

Fort St Elmo, which guards the approaches to the Grand and Marsamxett harbours, was the scene of a heroic defence during the Great Siege of 1565. After the siege, the victorious Knights of St John rebuilt the fort and strengthened its defences.

Mr Said's conservative costings would go a long way. They could be directed towards erecting scaffolding to prop up the walls about to collapse; cleaning up the shabby site and heightening security.

"I am not talking about evicting the squatters - with their donkeys, sheep, chickens and many dogs. That is another issue the government should tackle immediately, particularly in view of its recent crackdown on illegal use of public land," he commented. The estimated €2.5 million could also be used for a documentation exercise of the fort and a study of the various interventions, particularly in the light of "worrying" proposals that call for the demolition of structures located behind the Pinto fountain, which date back to the early British period.

Mr Said is shocked that these architecturally-interesting buildings have been pooh-poohed as having no value.

"They are definitely not condemned but, if left to their own devices, they are destined to deteriorate. It would be wanton destruction if they were removed to build a contemporary structure," he said.

The documentation of the interventions over time would serve to help the government understand what structures are superfluous or otherwise when it decides a use for the fort.

"It would not be prudent to go ahead and build a hotel, for example, just to prevent St Elmo from falling."

Fort St Elmo was merely the "playground" of Valletta residents, Mr Said maintained, adding that the carnival people, who prepared their floats on the site, had expressed their frustration about not wanting to be there and the government was to blame for not finding alternative premises.

"St Elmo and St Angelo are the two most important forts for their role in an important turning point in European history. So the least the government could do, at this stage, is to carry out emergency works to prevent further decay.

Fort Ricasoli was another issue for Mr Said. It was a "pity" that emergency works on it were not incorporated in the multimillion euro SmartCity project. The Malta Environment and Planning Authority could have imposed that planning gain as a condition, he believed.

The islands' fortifications, which have been under siege from the elements, are due to be restored over a period of five years through an injection of €36 million in EU funding. The fortified walls of the Ċittadella in Gozo, Vittoriosa, Mdina and Valletta are in for a facelift but St Elmo is not among the kilometres of bastions that have been earmarked.