Over the past weeks various reports in the media have stated that the underground parking in the Mosta town centre would help solve the parking problem for people residing in this locality. The Mosta local council is also of the same opinion, as stated in a press release dated October 1.

From the experience in other parts of Malta one can easily note that an increase in parking spaces generates more visitors, and hence more traffic, to the concerned area, resulting in a further lack of parking spaces a few years down the line. So this project is not a long-term solution. Besides, it has been stated that the parking tariffs offered by the operator would have to make “social sense”.

Even if this condition is met I wonder how many Mosta residents are willing to start paying in order to park their cars overnight. Parking areas where tariffs apply make most sense for short stays and so are more favourable to businesses than to residents.

One has to keep in mind that the proximity of this project to the Mosta Rotunda poses severe risks to the structural integrity of this unique building. It is thus highly irresponsible to expose the Rotunda to such risks in order to boost the business interests which abound in the area. If in 2009 a proposal for an underground museum in front of St John’s Co-Cathedral was shelved due to concerns about damage which might be caused to the co-cathedral building, the same reasoning should apply in this case as well.

Wied il-Għasel and the Rotunda are the most precious treasures which the locality of Mosta has to offer. The former has been irreversibly decimated by development. Let’s make sure that development doesn’t obliterate the second.

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