Valletta is undergoing major repairs and conservation. St George's Square, Merchants Street and adjacent roads have been re-paved and part of South Street will soon also be completed. Freedom Square has been fenced off and, shortly, it is planned that the City Gate project will commence. These major projects at the entrance to the city will take a few more years to be completed.

None of this work, however, can be implemented without short- and medium-term impacts on the life and business of Valletta. This is being felt starkly by residents and by the shops, businessmen and others whose daily work takes them there. For Valletta is not simply a heritage city, like Mdina, but it is also the country's capital and centre of government.

Nowhere are the repercussions of all that is going on today - and over the next few years - more closely felt than in their effect on traffic management and parking. There is a serious problem, which has been exacerbated by the seeming disorganisation and haphazardness with which the repair and restoration works have been effected. The Valletta Alive Foundation claims that the parking situation is "damaging the city's vitality" and that talk of "re-generating Valletta" is pointless "when all the decisions and actions being taken are clearly having the opposite effect".

There is no simple or straight-forward solution. Parking spaces in Valletta will always be limited. The existing 3,000 spaces are unlikely to be radically increased without huge financial investment and further disruption. Parking outside the city for those prepared to walk is similarly restricted. The bottom line is that with parking - both in Valletta and elsewhere - you simply can't squeeze a quart into a pint pot.

The answer lies in a combination of measures designed to discourage parking within the confines of the city and to encourage travel into Valletta by public transport. A start has been made with the park and ride scheme but this is not enough. What is needed is better traffic management, better organisation and the application of the carrot and the stick.

First, the public transport system must be improved. People going to Valletta - not just tourists - must feel comfortable using it because it is quick, efficient, clean, timely and enjoyable. This is not the case today. Until the new public transport system is in place, the Maltese culture change needed to abandon the private car will not happen and Valletta will continue to suffer the consequences. Once a modern transport system has been intrduced, the price of taking a car into the city can be progressively ratcheted up to discourage its use there. The pricing mechanism should discourage long-term parking and there should be differential rates for cars with passengers and single drivers. Valletta is a small city and not being able to park in the very centre will not entail an impossible sacrifice for visitors.

For his part, the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, who is himself a resident of Valletta, in his understandable anxiety to press ahead with these long-awaited projects to restore the quality and beauty of Valletta, must ensure that the way they are implemented reduces the inconvenience to the residents and businesses of Valletta to the greatest degree possible. This requires more careful thought and planning than appears to have been given to it so far.