Is the ramp in Cathedral Square, Victoria in conformity with the Access for All Design Guidelines and is it approved by the National Commission Persons with Disabilities (KNPD)? Back in September 2011, the project management of the Cittadella masterplan met with KNPD on issues of accessbility. Considering the physical nature of the Cittadella site as well as the fact that the approach to the citadel itself has a gradient of 1:5.67, while other areas in the upper parts of the citadel have gradients of 1:5.15, KNPD had accepted, in 2011, an access ramp superimposed on the stairs of the Cathedral church with a gradient of 1:5.5.

This gradient, in itself, has already been a significant improvement over the 1:3.38 gradient of the ramp that had been there for decades.

This 2011-ramp was even approved by Mepa as part of PA656/11 (Cittadella project). Following the discovery of the still mysterious stone circle in the area where the 2011 ramp had been proposed, the project management chose to alter the course of the ramp but all the while ensuring that the gradient remained intact so that the archaeological discoveries would be safeguarded.

For this matter, a minor amendment application was filed at Mepa on November 11, 2015. Consistent with this and sensitive to the requirements of the site and its users, the Ministry for Gozo has always been committed to enhance accessbility around the citadel. Therefore, various lifting platforms and stairlifts are being installed around and within the citadel and the previously-stepped pathways have been converted into sloped streets with significantly improved paving.

Additionally, two public lifts outside the citadel’s walls will ensure easy public access from street level to the visitor’s centre and from the visitor’s centre to the citadel’s main entrance. Furthermore, following the discovery of the stone circle in Cathedral Square and the redirection of the ramp, the Ministry for Gozo even submitted an application to Mepa on October 5, 2015 (tracking no. 164155) for the installation of yet another public lift to improve accessibility from the lower part of Cathedral Square to the law courts’ and surrounding streets’ levels.

Taking into account the other existing lift of the Gozo Cathedral, the citadel’s accessbility is set to reach, as yet, unprecedented levels. Over and above all this, meetings and communications with KNPD are scheduled as necessary so that a healthy dialogue over the Cittadella regeneration is maintained.

It was always clearly understood by the KNPD that it is useless to have, in this particular instance, a ramp with a lesser gradient than that of the roads it leads to and that was the reason why the KNPD decided to issue a no objection for the proposed ramp.