The 3/11 Regiment Royal Malta Artillery (T) Association, representing all the ex-servicemen who were effectively the last military occupants of Fort St Elmo in its essential original and inherent role as a defence establishment, cannot but agree with your columnist Michela Spiteri (December 18).
We have told the Malta Environment and Planning Authority and the Parliamentary Secretary for Tourism that commercial considerations and plans for the building of tourist accommodation or similar activity should be totally absent from any plans for the rehabilitation of Fort St Elmo.
As Dr Spiteri rightly says, “the fort should be its own attraction”, and in pressing for this type of approach we have even suggested to the authorities an ideal over-seas model, Edinburgh Castle in Scotland.
There is enough space in Fort St Elmo to have:
• A series of small museums (which can also double as organisational offices) of the various ex-servicemen’s societies in Malta (such as the RMA Association, the KOMR Association, the British Legion, the Royal Navy Association, the RAF Association, and so forth);
• Working from there, a contingent of the Armed Forces of Malta can take care of the maintenance of the place. The authorities could even consider establishing a regiment made up of part-time soldiers on the same lines of the territorial regiments and have it stationed at the fort.
• Restored rampart walks, with guns, and benches for visitors, and lovely views of the Grand Harbour;
• A much better organised and housed National War Museum;
• Regular cultural activities, not least by our excellent AFM band, in the various open spaces there;
• Historical diorama display facilities, such as the Great Siege, the war years, the Order of St John;
• A smart souvenir shop and café with clean toilets;
• Properly organised offices, and quarters for maintenance personnel.
This should be the thrust for anything to be done with Fort St Elmo. Mepa’s published brief about the place has been drafted without any consultation with interested parties like ourselves.
And by consultation we mean real a priori consultation and before going public, not a presentation of some architects’, civil servants’ or politicians’ fait accompli.
But it seems this country is only able to think ‘commercially’ and not ‘historically’. As Dr Spiteri implies, any end result which ignores considerations and suggestions such as these can only end up producing “upgraded… one-size-fits- all… fast food chain’ type edifices.