I enjoyed reading Spotlight On Valletta’s Covered Market (December 23) and wish to congratulate the author for the interesting information about Is-Suq tal-Belt (the Valletta market).

I wish to air some suggestions I had shared with some friends on how to revamp both Strait Street and the “covered market in Valletta”. Both have a decades-long memorable story to tell. To start with, both venues are crying out for conversion and redesign.

I fully agree the sites should be allocated to culture, arts and creativity. Looking forward to the 2018 bid for our capital city to be the European city of culture, the government should commence to embark on a restoration project of the mentioned heritage sites. These sites can be transformed into a mixture of heritage and culture of all that makes us Maltese.

The ground floor of the market should house a miniature Malta, including all the main historical sites in the Maltese islands.

This project can come into reality by engaging the Faculty of Architecture, which will construct to-scale historical sites scattered around Malta and Gozo. Another project should include the setting up of a carnival costumes museum, made up of outfits donated by individuals who participated in carnival companies in the past and updated on an annual basis. This will include an audiovisual presentation of how carnival in Malta and Gozo is organised.

An all year round crib museum would surely be an attraction to visitors too. Apart from these and also art galleries and creative projects there should be a mixture of catering establishments that will be encouraged to include Maltese dishes in their menus.

Giving space in both sites to young artists and designers to demonstrate their own creativity will give life to the capital city.

Another incentive should be given to the numerous collectors’ and hobbies’ clubs around Malta and Gozo, giving them the opportunity to exhibit the various memorabilia.

These can be housed in the various restored halls and buildings in Strait Street.

This mixture of cultural and heritage ventures of the Maltese islands spread out in Strait Street and at Is-Suq will offer as a bird’s eye view of all we have to offer to locals, tourists and the thousands of cruise liner passengers who flock to Valletta for a limited number of hours ashore.