I refer to James Farrugia’s letter Parking Abuse In Pietà Thoroughfare (October 11), in which Mr Farrugia complained that the residents’ parking scheme in Marina Street is not being enforced.

I can assure the Marina Street residents that enforcement is being carried out, however, we do not have a zero-tolerance policy. Pietà has one warden for a number of hours per day and the warden also spends some time in Marina Street. This street has unique and difficult problems, which as a council we are trying to address.

I would like to remind Mr Farrugia that until last year there was a Labour-led council, which for a time had a zero-tolerance policy in Marina Street. Wardens were sent to issue tickets for every sort of infraction. When this policy boomeranged, the council threw up its arms and claimed that it had no control over the wardens. This, of course, is rubbish. As a candidate I wrote to all the residences outlining my thoughts on the matter and when I was elected mayor in June 2009, the first thing I did was introduce a policing policy for the area. The residents were notified of this.

Marina Street is a busy thoroughfare and suffers from a lack of parking space. It is not just a matter of the demand exceeding supply but that there are large parts of the road where legal parking is impossible. Marina Street has bus stops, loading and unloading bays, garages and reserved parking places. What is left is a few parking spaces, most of which I had created when I was mayor in previous administrations. We also tried to curb abuses from car dealers who use the few parking spaces as their showroom. At the moment the council is trying to address this problem by frequent inspections.

The majority of residents appreciate that the council is trying to strike a balance, however difficult it may be. However, unlike the previous administration, that aggravated the matter, we are trying to address the problem sensibly. Admittedly, there are those who pass through the net by not being fined or residents that are fined because they do not adhere to the policy. However, the task at hand is not easy. The prevalent view among residents in Marina Street is that we should continue to enforce sensibly and not let local wardens loose on a very fertile patch.

I would like to draw just one other point from Mr Farrugia’s letter. When I introduced the residents’ parking scheme in Pietà, which led to a flurry of complaints from the public at large in the media, including a court case, none of the residents wrote in support of such a scheme. The Pietà residents, including those of Marina Street, were risking that the council be ordered to remove the areas dedicated to residents. I believed that Pietà needed them and I still do today. I took it upon myself to battle on and insist that such a scheme should be accepted. It surprised me at the time and still does today, that none of the residents countered the public outcry.