(Adds PN's statement)

The Marsascala Family Park will be reopened on Tuesday, Environment Minister Leo Brincat said during a programme on One.

The minister said that, as promised, health and safety issues at the park were being addressed. It was ensured that play areas were up to the standards required by health and safety engineers.

Other works will continue in the coming days.

The minister said that a Family Park Management Unit was set up to take over the responsibility for the administration of the park. It would be drawing up a plan for the park’s management and maintenance.

Mr Brincat said that real time air monitoring, done for the first time since the park was opened, ensured that the emissions from the nearby Waste Recycling Plant were within EU established levels.

The minister also referred to the Majjistral Park and said that funds which the park’s administration had been denied since 2011 were to be given.

The implementation of this park’s management plan would be scrutinised to create space for new activities which had been planned for a long time but which could not be implemented due to lack of funds. These included a visitors’ centre.

Mr Brincat said that the Government had passed on nearly €112,000 to the Heritage Parks Federation. These funds had been due for 2011-2012. He said that the board of directors thanked the Government for approving the legal notice regulating the park enabling it to operate in an effective and structured manner.

Minister kept park closed capriciously for 74 days - PN spokesmen

In a reaction, the Nationalist Party said that the minister would have kept the park closed in a capricious manner for 74 days, having closed it on July 19.

This was the detriment of people in the south and on a project carried out by EU funds. It was estimated that around 30,000 people used to visit the park each weekend.

Spokesmen George Pullicino and Charlo Bonnici said that in the past weeks the Government appointed three individuals to hid his strange decision behind a report rather than shoulder responsibility and say what really led him to close the park. He did so to waste more time trying to criticize what he had found. But he did not say one thing about what he planned to do in the sector.

The PN said that the park was on a rubbish dump that had been created by the Labour Government in the 1970s and 1980s, a Government Mr Brincat had formed part of.

The previous Government transformed the dump into a beautiful park using EU funds.