The football club applied for a planning permit to extend its club house and VIP stand. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli

Mosta football club will have to present its own detailed parking studies if it hopes to carry out long-awaited upgrading works, in the midst of a long drawn-out feud with nearby residents.

The Planning Authority yesterday gave the club one month to present the studies, rejecting out of hand the club’s suggestion that the added parking demand caused by the works could be suitably addressed by the nearby public Pama Supermarket parking area.

The football club applied for a planning permit to extend its club house and VIP stand, as well as regularising illegal dressing rooms built below its supporters’ stand, and glass screening between the stand and the pitch.

A permit for the works had been issued two years ago but residents appealed, claiming that the PA had not accurately calculated the amount of parking space required. The permit was recently upheld by a review tribunal, nullifying the approval and sending the case back to the PA for a fresh decision.

During a stormy public meeting yesterday, during which both residents and club officials were repeatedly rebuked by the PA board, residents reiterated longstanding grievances with the club for overburdening narrow surrounding roads during matches and nursery training sessions.

They also attacked the installation of green netting around the pitch, which is intended to stop people watching games from the pavement but which, residents say, has blocked off one of the few open spaces in the area.

Club officials argued that the parking situation was well addressed by the neighbouring Pama car park. But residents said this was frequently ignored as there was no pedestrian access from the car park to the ground, and no signage to direct supporters and families.

The PA gave the club one month

PA board chairman Vince Cassar insisted the club should submit a detailed traffic generation study showing the extremes of added traffic for periods of increased activity.

He said relying on the nearby car park, belonging to a third party, would establish a dangerous precedent.

The club had been slapped with an enforcement notice back in 2011 for illegal works including changing rooms, showers, toilets, a bar and meeting rooms in place of the spectator stand foundations.

Arguments with residents go back even further, to the start of upgrading works in 2009, when residents had fought to have the height of a proposed boundary wall significantly reduced.