The sign at Tigné Point says: “Stick to the footpath”. It’s a bit difficult to disobey those instructions. If you had to try to wander off the path towards the seaward side you’d merely be clambering over the rosemary bushes on the growing medium on the black membrane pinned down by flat rocks.

If you don’t have a fetish for scrambling over rudimentary landscaping and you still want to veer off the footpath, your options are limited. That’s because a good part of the landward side is walled off. Peering through a chink in between the wall and a fence, you’ll see a huge pool – the same pool that features prominently on the publicity bumph for the Tigné development.

One video clip online shows a woman swimming through the sun-dappled water of the pool. It looks gorgeous – especially with the spectacular views of the Valletta skyline across the bay.

There’s only one hitch – an expensive one at that. Access to the pool is reserved for the exclusive use of Tigné Point residents. According to the real estate agent on one of those excruciatingly awful You Tube videos (trying to be slick and selling a “lifestyle” but offering lingering shots of the loos) you can only enjoy the pool if you are a Tigné Point resident and have a membership card.

“It’s very exclusive” our You Tube estate agent tells us. Which means that mere mortals – the ones who can’t afford the million euro price tag attached to property at Tigné Point – won’t ever get a look-in at that pool. Or savour the sun in the deck area. Or have their children run round or play outside the strictures of the footpath. Or sit on a bench in the shade of a tree. Or do anything people normally do in a public park.

If a public park was designated as being the community benefit from this megadevelopment, why is there now only a strip of landscaping?

It’s odd. Because the plans attached to the original permit and deed designated the area as a “Public park”. It is clearly stated: “This is the site of a new public park”. The outline development permission states that the principal uses of the development at Manoel Island and Tigné Point as shown in the approved plans are to be maintained.

So where did the proposed public park go? Shouldn’t it have been where the exclusive private pool is situated now? Do half a dozen rosemary bushes used as landscaping, constitute a park? Is a paved, metre-wide walkway a public park?

Was this what was originally intended when the emphyteutical concession was granted 17 years ago? That the public park which was to be the enjoyed by the community would boil down to some rosemary bushes and a path? Applying this measure, we could argue that every roundabout is a Maltese Amazon, every window box a huge jungle, every bonsai shrub a monumental tree. This interpretation is a patently ridiculous one.

Looking over the discrepancy between the parliamentary approved plans and the bareness that there is now, it is clear that the public is owed an explanation. If a public park was designated as being the community benefit from this megadevelopment, why is there now only a strip of landscaping instead of that promised? Were there other agreements following the original one, in which politicians ceded yet more public land to private commercial interests?

Is this sorry excuse of a paved walkway and a couple of bushes the prototype of the other park that the same outfit intends to set up on Manoel Island? And – again – which entity is charged with ensuring that the public hasn’t been shortchanged on this deal? Isn’t it about time that the relevant contract was scrutinised and adherence to the original parameters checked?

Wishing all readers of The Sunday Times of Malta a serene and happy Easter.

drcbonello@gmail.com