Labour Party councillors in St Julian's have voiced support for a proposed Paceville master plan, saying proposals would reduce emissions and create a balance between development and open public spaces.

In a statement issued today, PL councillors disassociated themselves from a residents' meeting organised last week, saying the Nationalist Party councillors who organised it had only invited organisations opposing the master plan to attend.  

At the meeting, held last Friday, residents had voiced concerns about the master plan's environmental knock-on effects, with one saying that implementing it would lead to swimming zones as far away as Exiles in Sliema being turned into "stagnant creeks".

PL councillors have now said that the meeting only presented one side of the issue and might have alarmed residents unnecessarily.  

They said they were "pleased that the government wants to improve the area" and described the master plan as a project that would add value to area's "natural and historical heritage as well as to residents who have spent years suffering from the effects of years of neglect". 

The PL councillors praised the master plan, saying it would lead to better development, new infrastructure and parking lots and a clear, physical separation between entertainment and residential areas. 

They called on the St Julian's local council they form part of to organise other consultation meetings in which residents could make "concrete and positive" proposals, rather than meetings aimed at "pushing the PN's agenda by being critical of any proposal, no matter what."