The Sliema council’s proposal to limit all parking spaces for residents would only create more confusion in the area, the Sliema Business Committee chairman yesterday warned.
“Parking in Sliema is already bad – we are losing shoppers who come to the area but cannot park and turn back. Others don’t come down at all,” Christina Pace told The Sunday Times.
Ms Pace, who owns shops in Sliema, disagreed with the proposal by the local council which discarded the proposal to hold a referendum on introducing a residents’ parking scheme.
Instead, the council is aiming to extend the residents’ parking scheme to all 117 streets in Sliema and not to the minimum two-thirds as required by a legal notice.
Although the proposal still has to be seen and discussed in depth by the committee, Ms Pace – a Sliema resident – said it would create more problems.
“This is not a solution for the business community – the commercial area already suffers from a lot of problems as it is,” she said.
Many office buildings were constructed without catering for parking spaces, for example, and many old houses did not have allotted bays.
Sliema residents also had to keep in mind that the town was a commercial area which required parking spaces for non-residents, she added.
“Residents have a prime right to park there but everyone has a right to park there – including people who work in Sliema, those who want to shop, or those who want to visit,” Ms Pace said.
Similarly, business and shop owner Theresa Bartolo Parnis said it was not fair to “demonise” employees who worked in the popular resort and pointed out that this proposal could “be another nail in the coffin” of Sliema businesses.
“People complain these parking spaces are ‘blocked’ by employees but what do they expect them to do? However, I fully understand the plight of the residents,” she said.
“I don’t believe it’s fair that retailers bear the burden and I want shoppers to come to Sliema and not have difficulty parking,” she said.
The council’s proposal was also lambasted by the Sliema Residents’ Association, which said it would not solve traffic problems and described it as a “lopsided fix” and a “short-term solution”.
Though several residents would welcome the initiative, many, especially the elderly, are concerned that family and friends would be dissuaded from visiting them.
Transport Malta is currently not processing resident parking applications because of a pending constitutional case contending that a parking scheme in another locality breached human rights.
According to legal notice 79, the 117 streets in Sliema will be turned into residential parking zones every day between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m., including popular areas like The Strand.
Non-residents may only park for up to 150 minutes.