I look over the fields from Saqqajja Square in Rabat to the buildings opposite and I see the recently-built and well-kept Verdala Mansions, standing in front of the once imposing Grand Hotel Verdala which has now been closed for 12 years.

I look at this hotel with nostalgia not only because I hail from Rabat but also because I spent a good 10 years of my life working in that hotel.

It was my first full-time job and I look back with fond memories at the good (and sometimes bad) times I spent in that building, all the colleagues and friends I made and all the people who came and went from there as clients, but most of all the repeat guests.

Today, 12 years later, the hotel is still closed. What was to reopen 10 years ago as a five-star resort hotel is now still in a shabby and rundown state and this makes me somewhat sad.

I do not write as a former employee of the Verdala, but as a resident and also as a local councillor. I remember the hotel guests filling our local pubs and restaurants.

Most bar and restaurant owners in Rabat still stop me and ask me when the hotel is reopening (they still associate me with it).

I have been hearing rumours that the hotel is to be demolished and replaced with apartment blocks. If so, this would be a big mistake as Rabat desperately needs a hotel. I speak from experience. Whenever, even as councillor, I am asked for accommodation in Rabat, I just go blank as there is no hotel accommodation at all, and this is a shame.

I do hope the owners seriously give the development a thought as Rabat would gain from the reopening of the Grand Hotel Verdala. I am sure my sense of nostalgia is widely shared as this landmark hotel brings many good memories to a great number of people.