On the Dot

• Għar Qawqla Street, in Marsalforn, is crying out loud for a facelift after long years of patching up. One wonders whether the government is waiting for summer to start to award the contract after a call for tenders was made more than a year ago. When the work is done, all services will hopefully go underground.

Track

• Neglect can be noticed in Santa Marija Street, again in Marsalforn where a flight of steps leading to the rocky foreshore is in a piteous state. A stone wall there is crumbling. Benches along the promenade ought to be repainted. Though usable, a public convenience on the way from Marsalforn to Qbajjar, needs maintenance. Residents insist that to prevent damage to street furniture along the promenade caused by the rough north-westerly weather the breakwater at Santa Marija point, which was extensively damaged over the years, must be repaired.

Trees

• The Sta Venera local council states adamantly that “the trees will be removed”. What is sure, however, is that they will not be replanted anywhere else because, so far, the ones in Triq il-Palazz l-Aħmar are being allowed to deteriorate. They have not been removed, as would have been done had the intention been to save them. Moreover, the residents will now be bereft of the limited amount of privacy the trees afforded them and there will be nothing to absorb noise and air pollution.

Together

• Somebody has finally realised that many of those who volunteer to help others, in any way, may be doing so without making a song-and-dance about it. After a long string of advertorials about how this is the European year for Volunteering in English, meant to empower citizens, the version in the vernacular aimed at corporate bodies and individuals has just started being broadcast on the media. This is a case of better late than never.

Textiles

• Fabric is one of the specific items mentioned that cannot be placed in bring-in sites recycling bins. Seeing that there is a ready market for used clothing, some of which is sold by weight, anyone who decides to collect these privately will surely make a killing.

Tapping

• Petra Bianchi, the new director for environment protection at the Malta Environment and Planning Authority, has been quoted as saying that “the registration and metering of boreholes is being introduced... to control the extraction of groundwater. A fair price should be paid by all who benefit from this limited resource, to promote the efficient and sustainable use of water”. Will this mean those who regularly water crops with illegally-extracted groundwater now be tempted to use less salubrious methods to avoid having to fork out the intended fees?

Tentative

• A Mepa spokesman insisted on radio that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder and intimated that we will not know how good the Tritons Fountain, restored to its pristine original glory, will look in its new position outside Valletta. Leaving it where it is, he said, would reduce it to a mere roundabout that has nothing going around it. When all is said and done, the expense for moving it “a few metres” is not what the public wants. Such paternalistic attitudes are well past their best by date.

Technicalities

• Children are regularly seen playing in the waterspouts in St George’s Square, Valletta, especially when the spurts gush out in time to music. The water may not be altogether clean because it drains down to a corner of the square and is used again and again. How often are samples checked to ensure the water is free from any disease?

Trailers

• Whatever happened to the good intentions about removing all the overhead cables and wires in Valletta in order to render the streets more aesthetically pleasing? The project appears to have stopped midway, possibly because of the upheaval at the entrance to the city.

Trembling

• In Marsalforn, the powers-that-be ought to note that parts of the concrete platform near the sandy beach in front of the police station broke off with the result that concrete juts out, constituting a hazard and an eyesore. Danger is also evident along the promenade where chunks of concrete also broke off the main structure, exposing rusted iron and that can only spell danger.