Updated: Video: Carnival enthusiasts say they face February deadline on Fort St Elmo use

(Adds Parliamentary Secretary's promise to enthusiasts)

Parliamentary Secretary Jason Azzopardi has promised carnival enthusiasts they would be allowed to continue working from Lower Fort St Elmo after next year's carnival until a project which will see them relocated is concluded.

Jason Busuttil, president of the Ghaqda Partecipanti Karnival, said he received a call from Dr Azzopardi who assured him that the enthusiasts would be able to start preparing for the 2010 carnival from St Elmo. They would remain there until they were moved to suitable alternative premises.

In the morning, the enthusiasts who build floats at Lower Fort St Elmo, called on the government to tell them where they would be relocated to after the next Carnival in February.

Inspectors from the Government Property Division this morning evicted squatters from the fort but allowed registered Carnival enthusiasts to stay.

Mr Busuttil said that the enthusiasts had been told they would be allowed to stay in Fort St Elmo only until the next Carnival. The association, therefore, was calling for answers about their future before the end of the year because floats took several months to produce.

Promises, he said, were made before every election about a Carnival Village but nothing ever materialised. Enthusiasts, he said, wanted warehouses from where to work and not a village.

See also

http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20081210/local/evictions-from-fort-st-elmo-start