Damage to new waterfront

On a beautiful Sunday morning a friend and I decided to walk along the newly paved Senglea waterfront, launched with great publicity earlier this year. We could not believe the wanton damage caused to the new pavement by cars, black rubber marks and oil stains. And nearly all the blocks next to the kerb were smashed to pieces.

On talking to a local café owner, he said there are “going to be bollards to stop parking”. Going to be?

Why oh why were they not installed at the time the paving was laid? It is too late now the damage is done.

Is there no one of basic intelligence to supervise these projects? There seems to be no shortage of designers who can produce “artist’s impressions” and pour money into promoting things, but no proper management team to supervise the work carried out – or to say no, that is not correct, do it again – until it is too late.

Also, the trees which were saved by protest now appear to have been destroyed; either their roots were cut off or they failed to be given enough water. So it seems that once again the Malta Tree Haters will have their way.

We owe the EU a massive amount of praise for the many projects they have supported, but to see their generous funding being so grossly mismanaged is unforgiveable.

No doubt the same effects are being experienced at Dock No.1, which is an ongoing area of chaos with Third World driving conditions. Some people are of course happy to blame the “new government”, but that is rubbish.

This trend of unprofessional supervision of building projects dates back far beyond the recent election – hopefully someone will be allocated to rap a few knuckles and bang some heads together. Meanwhile one can only say shame on the Senglea planners.