Fort St Elmo plan deserves support

All public-spirited citizens with genuine concern for our island heritage would welcome Parliamentary Minister Mario de Marco's outcry at the sorry state of Fort St Elmo (November 7).

Dr de Marco proposes a three-step action plan, namely to conserve what exists, to restore certain parts, and to decide on a use. He says that "to keep these fortifications alive, we need to give them a purpose".

All of this has been on the cards for very many years. No one has taken any positive initiative. Meanwhile the fort was largely abandoned and taken over by vandals.

The reporter affirmed that Fort St Elmo is a veritable rubbish dump and, in fact, "70 tons of all forms of waste have been removed in a week-long operation, some time ago, only to find more, including a wardrobe, being dumped between shifts" of the Cleansing Services Department personnel.

Surely the most urgent step of all is to secure the fort from the persistent depredations to which it has been exposed. With enough diligence, Fort St Elmo would not have been reduced to the disastrous state which Dr de Marco rightly described as a "national shame".

Dr de Marco has advanced some ideas as how to go about rehabilitating and making good use of the fort. He deserves the enthusiastic support of all the relevant ministers and their subordinate agencies, however belated.