The Sliema parking scheme was suspended on May 3. Photo: Chris Sant Fournier

The government has issued a legal notice to repeal another one issued in 2009 which had given the Sliema council the green light to introduce a parking scheme for residents.

The new legal notice strengthens the government’s position against residents’ parking schemes following the suspension of the controversial system a few days after Sliema had introduced it.

The parking scheme had been suspended on May 3, barely a week after coming into force, following a Cabinet decision in reaction to a strike by teachers who work in Sliema.

The government had suspended on grounds that it was introduced “unilaterally and without an adequate trial period” and had caused problems in the area.

The scheme had reserved half the town’s parking bays for residents. Non-residents could only park in resident bays for two hours or face a €23 fine.

Following this decision, Transport Minister Joe Mizzi said residents’ parking schemes “should be abolished”.

Although it withdrew the previous legal notice, the government retained the exemption for Sliema residents to park at The Strand and Manwel Dimech Street where time parking is in force.

Transport Malta said the timed parking approved in these two streets “were not part of the scheme which was withdrawn” and that this exemption had already been in place before.

But the Sliema council still believes it should have its own parking scheme for residents.

Mayor Tony Chircop asked why residents’ parking schemes in other localities had not been withdrawn or suspended. Among them, he cited Floriana, Valletta, Pieta` and Ħamrun.

Other localities continued with their scheme and no one told them anything

“You ask if we feel we were discriminated against. I would rather use the more polite form by saying we were treated unfairly. The legal notice cancelling the one we had in hand to introduce a parking scheme for residents was specifically targeted at Sliema. Other localities continued with their scheme and no one told them anything,” he said.

Mr Chircop said he had raised the matter with the Local Councils’ Association, which in turn sent out questionnaires to all councils before it came up with an official position on the matter.

The mayor said Transport Malta keeps telling the council it was working on a study covering all of Malta’s localities but was never given any timelines.

When contacted, a spokesman for Transport Malta said it was in the process of developing a National Transport Strategy that will provide a strategic framework for transport covering the years 2014-2030.

It said the strategy will establish short, medium and long-term strategic approaches for the development of Malta’s transport system.

The process for development of this document is being undertaken in conjunction with technical assistance being provided to Malta under the Joint Assistance to Support Projects in European Regions (JASPERS). Public consultation on the draft strategy is expected to start early next year and will continue until the end of 2014, when the National Transport Strategy is planned to be finalised.

Transport Malta said the study was identifying gaps and shortcomings in existing policies and strategies. Real road and traffic data is being collected at links and junctions on the road network, including vehicle speeds, flows, journey times, trip origins and destinations.

“The model will then be used to predict future traffic levels at different sections in the road network and to assess different growth scenarios in terms of traffic flows, congestion, journey times, road safety, noise and air quality,” the spokesman said.

The results of the traffic simulation model are expected to feed into the National Transport Strategy which will identify measures and infrastructure priorities for the next 10 to 15 years.