The recent increased use of parking facilities on the outskirts of heavily urbanised zones has brought to light an acute inability to responsibly manage such areas. A lack of organisation based on piecemeal policy-making has resulted in a myriad of huge discrepancies in many different aspects regarding these car parks.

The differences in quality are a case in point. The Independence Arena inFloriana on a wet day is like a scene from a Third World country with mud all around and a lone attendant desperately trying to dry up the place armed with a squeegee and Wellingtons, a feat more unlikely to be achieved than obtaining gold through alchemy.

The dusty surface of the defunct football ground lies adjacent to the aligned, smooth tarmac built with public funding by Transport Malta. The surfaced area was, post-election, passed on to Floriana FC by the government.

A community such as Floriana, which suffers an inconvenience in view of drivers passing through to access Valletta, should be compensated. But this should be at community level, not through such a generous donation to a particular sports club. If any land used by a sports club should be utilised for other purposes, in this case parking, the public land should be passed on to entities competent to manage it for that purpose, while the club is compensated and provided alternative premises.

I am not aware of the terms of the post-election deal. However the MCP car park a few metres away pays thousands for its lease. Talk of level playing fields should not be reserved to Brussels corridors.

Variations abound with respect to fees charged too. In the Valletta/Floriana car parks on public land, prices range from 50c to €2 for what is ultimately the same service. At the Sliema local council we recently received reports of even higher prices charged at a car park in Sliema, which led the council to report the matter to Transport Malta.

The third area of discrepancies relates to the parking attendants. Most parkers are extremely polite and presentable while a minority are far less so, verging on the confrontational. In some instances you pay the attendant only to return to find the area unattended a few hours later.

There are then the truly affable Mediterranean characters; the parkers at Riviera beach and Wied iż-Żurrieq come to mind. Scenes of tourists engaged in a friendly chat with these parkers ending in a jovial laugh are a common sight.

Bearing our size in mind, multiple-storey underground car parks need to be the norm

One of the few similarities between the US and Malta is the sight of road-level car parks. Considering our scarcity of land, the mind boggles as to why so many of the popular car parks are spread across large stretches of land and not underground.

Bearing our size in mind, multiple-storey underground car parks need to be the norm, particularly on public land close to historical sites and near educational institutions.

Wied Għollieqa would definitely benefit should the University of Malta set an example of sustainable use of public land utilised for parking, by removing the adjacent car parks and going underground in the rest. Renewable energy sources or green areas may be created at street level, if not sports and educational facilities.

Opportunities abound, and in the process our cars will be parked in shaded, protected areas.

We then have the abandoned areas of public land resulting from the lack of strong will for the planned sustainable use of public space. A case in point is the Valletta ditch where the restored bastion walls in all their splendour are a sad contrast to the building debris, the last remaining eyesore which welcomes visitors to Valletta. When will this area be cleaned up?

We get mixed signals as to whether it will be a car park or a public garden with citrus trees. Is it not high time for a decision to be taken? For all it’s worth I suggest expanding the current parking facility by going underground on the outer part of the ditch, while retaining Renzo Piano’s public garden plan.

When it comes to the ‘town I am most familiar with’, a park and ride facility would definitely alleviate the traffic and lack of parking options. Any areas in Manoel Island not earmarked for other functions should be seriously considered, possibly by using sea transport to the shopping areas.

With respect to Sliema I can’t fail to mention the fact that at present it is the only locality in Malta which has been prohibited from implementing a residents’ parking scheme.

The scheme introduced by the council in 2013 was in line with legislation and was aimed at creating a balance between the needs of visitors and locals. It was in fact applicable to less than half the parking areas of particular streets and was a timed-parking system not applicable in the evenings and on Sundays.

In a sentence delivered in 2007 involving the case against the Pietà local council, the First Hall of the Civil Court emphatically declared that there should either be resident parking schemes in every locality or none. Having a minister decide that they can be anywhere in Malta and Gozo except Sliema is unacceptable.

Policy making on parking facilities on public land needs to urgently depart from the photo opportunity that it has degenerated into, for a political party representative to be seen with a football club. It should be about having convenient, safe parking facilities which can serve to embellish the area and reutilise land to the benefit of the community.

Our precious land and our driving habits are crying out for wiser, sustainable decisions on parking zones.

Paul Radmilli is a PN local councillor in Sliema.