NYE celebration on the Granaries out of the question - mayor

A future New Year's Eve celebration on the Granaries in Floriana is out of the question, the town's mayor, Nigel Holland, said today.

Addressing a news conference, he said the Granaries were too big to fill with an event which had an unpredictable attendance, and St Anne’s street, the current venue, was more sheltered.

The Floriana mayor accused his and the Valletta councils of becoming a laughing stock with their public bickering over their New Year’s Eve celebrations.

He said his council was surprised at the way the Valletta council had implied that Floriana was to blame for the traffic chaos ensuing the capital’s celebrations.

“We had our objections to the Valletta activities for various reasons, that councils should not organise competing events, for instance, but we kept our concerns within official structures, and not out in the open. Yesterday the council decided to put us in the picture, we should do our best to stop this public bickering, because we’re taking the football rivalry up to local government level, and this is good for nobody,” he said.

He reiterated that even though his council had been asked to collaborate, “no viable propositions were made”.

Mr Holland said he did not think the Valletta event had a positive effect on the Floriana celebrations, with people who found Valletta too crowded returning to Floriana to celebrate the New Year.