The tough battle over parking in Sliema

I would like to assure Vincent Chetcuti (Checking Parking Abuse, April 9) that over the past three years it has been a constant battle to tackle the parking problem seriously. On my own initiative I decided to conduct a small study about the parking situation in Sliema.

The main problem, which mainly affects the Tigné and Qui Si Sana area up to the Stella Maris area, is the number of shop and office people who work in Sliema.

They start arriving at 7 a.m. and do not leave until 7 p.m. In the meantime other people come to shop in Sliema usually from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. In the evening there are those who come to dine here and if it's a nice day there are the strollers on the promenade.

Summer is a totally different scenario. In addition to the winter situation there is an influx of people who come swimming between 9 a.m. and 8 p.m. peaking at around 6 - 7 p.m. as well as the hundreds of people that come to walk on the promenade every evening.

At around 3 a.m. there are plenty of parking spaces available - the cars parked are those of residents. Because of the influx into the shopping centre and the large number of offices, the parking problem is felt throughout Sliema.

Another problem is that Mepa has been issuing permits for blocks of apartments without garages. Instead of one family living in a house possessing two cars, now there are flats with 10 cars or more. Mepa has collected millions through the CPPS, with every developer having to pay €2,097 per car space that they do not offer. Our call was for some of these funds to be made available to the Sliema local council to draw up a report offering solutions to the problem.

As for the residents' parking scheme, we are still awaiting a reply from the ADT and as I stated before, if reserved parking schemes are illegal then they need to be removed. We cannot accept a situation where most of Malta has illegally reserved parking while Sliema has been left in the dark.

If re-elected I would assure everyone that parking would be my main concern and I would make sure that it would be recognised as the number one problem in Sliema and we have to get moving on it.