One bright September morning last year, environmental activists cut through a wire fence and walked into the green wilderness that is Manoel Island. They swam in the sea at the foot of the stone hewn steps in front of the fort. There were no parking facilities, no kiosks, no showers, no sunbeds, no umbrellas, no Wi-Fi hotspots, no novelty bars, but it was beautiful because it was untouched, uncurated and a respite from the concrete canyons darkening the mainland and the Tigné peninsula.

That wire fence had been in place for well over a decade, impeding access to the general public. In the meantime, the Lazzaretto quarantine hospital complex was left to rot. Restoration works on part of Fort Manoel were carried out – largely on the parade ground which was utilised for lucrative special events. The rest? Left to crumble away – as evidenced by the scores of visitors who walked round the bastions and the ditch that day.

Now, 17 years after having been granted an emphyteutical concession for a huge tract of land at Tigné and on Manoel Island, MIDI plc have come up with their latest master plan for the last green lung in the area. At a presentation last week, foreign starchitects gave us the great reveal. Fort Manoel is to be turned into a hotel. The Lazzaretto complex a few metres away is to be turned into a hotel. There will be retail outlets, more retail outlets and then… luxury retail outlets. And restaurants. There will be a casino. There will be a helipad and superyachts. There will be a water taxi pontoon just in front of the fort in the limited stretch of sea in which the public can swim without being mowed down by a millionaire’s yacht.

We were told there would be an extensive glacis garden. This is not news. The garden is already there. It’s been there since I was a little girl. It’s made up of grass and trees and is not dependent on MIDI’s intervention for its creation or maintenance. The same applies to the garden in the ditch surrounding Fort Manoel. It’s been there since forever and I can’t really see why we have to grovel in gratitude because MIDI plc is going to lop off some weeds and transform it into one of those anally neat lawns which are so alien to the Mediterranean context.

The penalties for defaulting run up to €1,164.69 per day of default. Do the maths and see if it doesn’t run up into millions

Actually, I don’t think that the Maltese public have anything to be grateful for. Despite honeyed buzzwords to the contrary, the most recent Manoel Island plans do not give anything to everyday citizens which is not already theirs. Access to the foreshore and to public areas are rights protected by law. Accessibility to the island is pretty easy. Your average citizen will not be using a helicopter to swoop down to his expensive suite within the fort barracks. Families will not be evinced with a sudden urge to gamble away the housekeeping money in the casino (the third or fourth in Malta).

As for the retail and luxury retail – well – big yawn. How different will that be to the retail and luxury retail outlets plonked in MIDI’s Tigné developments down the road?

As for Fort Manoel being utilised as a hotel – hardly innovative or community-minded – especially in view of the fact that the original re-use proposals approved by the Planning Authority indicated that the fort was to accommodate a fort museum, a visitor centre, an exhibition gallery and an audiovisual centre. The emphasis was to be on traditional crafts or arts studios or workshops. The chapel crypt was to be an exhibition room, with the chapel being reinstated as a religious building. No mention of a hotel there. Initially, the only reference to an aparthotel was at Lazzaretto.

Now there will be two hotels on a lick of land across the water from scores of other hotels. In an overdeveloped, crowded and congested country, what we need is an untouched natural enclave not this disappointing idea of turning Manoel Island into a tacky hybrid of Mall Island and the casino-riddled Macau Island. Any way you look at it, it is going to be the reserve of the moneyed consumer but there will be little to do on Manoel Island when you’re not guzzling or gambling or grabbing retail off the shelves.

There’s much more to the Manoel Island saga of course. Much of it stemming from the emphyteutical contract signed 17 years ago. Despite leaving it up to MIDI plc to decide whether to kick off development with the Tigné phase or the Manoel Island phase, the contract laid down strict time limits for the commencement and completion of the works necessary to prevent further deterioration of certain historic sites such as the Lazzaretto complex.

In a 2008 interview, MIDI’s architect had described parts of the Lazzaretto complex as being in a “ruinous state”, “a very delicate state” and “in a very perilous state”. What has been done to stop the complex from crumbling into the sea, decreasing the restoration bill substantially but depriving the Maltese public of yet another iconic heritage monument? This is a very pertinent question as the contract envisages penalties for non-observance of time limits. The penalties for defaulting run up to €1,164.69 per day of default. Do the maths and see if it doesn’t run up into millions.

Similar penalties are stipulated for non-timely delay in substantially completing a phase. Look at the cranes still swinging about on the perennial building site which is Tigné, and do some more maths and figure out if the Maltese public is at the losing end of this deal.

The NGO The Friends of Manoel Island has written to the Prime Minister asking him to look into the matter of whether there was observance of the terms of the deed. We opt for scrutiny over speculation.

drcbonello@gmail.com

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