Bisazza Street in Sliema will be fully pedestrianised, the government has decided, although not everyone welcomes the plan.

Transport Malta is making the necessary preparations so that, once the embellishment works are completed, no more traffic would drive through the heart of Sliema and one of its main shopping streets.

“We will now be consulting the business community and the local council to determine loading and unloading times for residents and shop owners,” the Resources Ministry said.

It based its decision on a Sliema Business Community meeting last month, where, it said, a vote resulted in 60 per cent of its members in favour of full pedestrianisation, as opposed to allowing only buses to pass.

It also referred to a vote in favour of total pedestrianisation by the Sliema council last week but did not comment on whether it took into account a petition signed by 57 shops in the area – from the top of Tower Road and down Bisazza Street – that want the new route buses to go through.

The petition says that the 57 businesses, which would be directly impacted, are “in favour of the option of partial pedestrianisation”.

It has more signatures than the non-binding vote of the Sliema business community meeting, where 47 shops voted for total pedestrianisation “for a trial period of six months”, as opposed to 35 against, according to Theresa Bartolo Parnis, owner of Monsoon and Accessorize.

The meeting, she said, had left shop owners dissatisfied and was “farcical”. In fact, she added, the petition even included the signatures of those businesses that had voted in favour of total pedestrainisation.

Ms Bartolo Parnis was baffled that Resources Minister George Pullicino was prepared to “force through what the majority of retailers” did not want.

The idea of allowing the buses to drive through the road dated back to a meeting with Mr Pullicino in March when he pointed out that the new transport system would mean the road would see 28 buses an hour.

The prospect of that kind of traffic proved attractive to shop owners, who immediately considered the advantages of bringing people straight past their windows, now visible because parking has been removed, and into their heart.

The new system would have been “a breath of fresh air from the undesirable buses that brought nothing but pollution”, Ms Bartolo Parnis said.

Total pedestrianisation was no longer as attractive as it originally appeared also because of the parking issue, she said. “We were led to believe we would get alternative parking but, instead, that of Tower Road and now the 50 spaces on Bisazza Street were removed and if a residents’ scheme goes through there would be even less,” she maintained.

Ms Bartolo Parnis said the committee had been assured the ministry was considering various parking options but, to date, nothing had materialised.

“The Point has only posed a minimal threat to our business but if all traffic is rerouted there, things could change and the situation would be grossly unfair,” she said.

The issue was recently broached by Sliema councillor Martin Debono in the local council’s magazine, where he said the intention was “to migrate the existing business from the old town centre to the new shopping malls”.

He said the government was determined to ruin the commercial and residential community at The Strand to accommodate the Tigné and Manoel Island projects.

“We have gone from one extreme to the other: For 50 years, we have had a free-for-all road that was falling apart, now we have embellished the area and will ban vehicles, without creating parking alternatives that could only result in alienating the public from the centre,” Ms Bartolo Parnis said.

Ideally, the decision would be taken later when there was a parking alternative – “and we feel confident”.

For Marlene Seychell, owner of a number of shops in the area, the problem was parking, which Sliema has been “stripped” of.

“I agree with pedestrianisation, given there is adequate parking in the vicinity,” she said.

The Body Shop director, Simone Mizzi, said the six-month trial period the minister “promised” was too long in the retail world and could wipe out a whole year of business. Retailers would die, she insisted.

With the works under way in Valletta and Sliema, shops could just close down, she said, admitting that over the last weeks of upheaval in the capital, she lost 40 per cent of business and 27 per cent during the embellishment in Sliema.

“You may as well take a major brand like The Body Shop out of Malta,” Ms Mizzi said.

While pedestrianisation was good for the environment, a retailer on Bisazza Street would be totally cut off, privileging The Point, she continued.

Lack of parking – not even for her staff – was the main issue and she expected it to be further depleted. “Car-free areas are lovely if those who work and live in the area have parking spaces,” she said.

Ms Mizzi also pointed out that total pedestrianisation worked on a flat road and she tried to imagine old women carting their shopping up and down. “I would avoid it like the plague!”

But Sliema mayor Joanna Gonzi was “so confident” everyone would benefit from full pedestrianisation: “People shop where they feel safe and children are secure, where there is no pollution and they can sit on a bench outdoors. I would certainly prefer to shop in the open.”

She said having a bus passing through Bisazza Street every two minutes would mean lack of safety and fumes, even though the new buses were meant to be environment-friendly.

Unknowingly confirming businesses’ concerns, Ms Gonzi believed deviating traffic into the relatively “more open” Tigné peninsula through the Midi tunnel would be “easier on residents”.