Resources and Rural Affairs Minister George Pullicino and the team who planned and executed the pedestrianisation of Bisazza Street, Sliema have done a very good job. A thoroughfare choked with vehicles at all hours of the day and evening has been turned into an oasis of calm which anyone can enjoy at leisure, linking up with the pleasant, also recently restored Piazza Sant’Anna.

The government has been doing considerable work opening up spaces for the people to enjoy. The creation of George Bonello du Puis Garden at Qui-Si-Sana has been another fine effort in the area, also under the responsibility of Minister Pullicino. As with everything else in all this has not come about without creating controversy and criticism.

Among the latter, the administration has been accused that it is paying attention mostly to Sliema and to Cottonera. It behoves the government to ensure that similar development is fairly spread around the island. But, it seems to me, considerable attention has been paid to other areas besides Sliema and Cottonera, not least in the south, which has been a Cinderella for too many years, including the time of the Labour administration.

Resources are finite. They have increased with the transfer of funds from the European Union which came about after membership was achieved seven years ago. Civil councils have been encouraged to take initiatives in their areas, some of which have borne tasty fruit. Some will say that much more needs to be done. That will always remain true. The important thing is that available resources are spread equitably and used diligently.

That, as far as I can see, has been the case with Bisazza Street. Yet controversy hounded the project and is still going on.

An early shout was directed at the Midi Consortium. There were those who alleged that the street was being pedestrianised to direct traffic, and thereby custom, towards The Point at Tigne’, Midi’s commercial centre. The consortium has denied that very strongly, complaining in turn that the through-tunnel it constructed may now become congested.

Within Bisazza Street itself shop owners were divided. Some agree that the street should be pedestrianised, saying it would become more attractive to shoppers thereby. Others disagreed. They want buses to go through it, as that would permit an indirect form of advertising.

Now Arriva, the new national bus company due to start operating on July 3, has joined the fray. It declared, in too raucous a voice, that it had been agreed that a number of routes required its buses to pass through Bisazza Street and so they would, at least until a scheduled review of the whole system takes place in six months’ time.

The routes, it appears, had been worked out in conjunction with the Malta Transport Authority. It might be that was done at a time when it was still uncertain whether to permit buses through a revamped Bisazza Street.

However that came about, a revision is required now, before Arriva starts to operate. The way the works at the street have turned out it is inconceivable that vehicles should use it other than for tightly scheduled deliveries. The Transport Authority should intervene straightaway, while Arriva ought to be more circumspect with its declarations.

Other criticism included the fact that the public lavatories existing before Bisazza Street was done up have disappeared. I understand they will reappear only a few metres further down when it is the turn of the old “Ferries” to be upgraded. That should be done as early as feasible, hopefully without doing away with the remaining parking lot there. Controversy is always on the programme in Malta, as is criticism. To the extent that they serve to improve a situation, they are ­useful. So far that has been the case in Bisazza Street.