I love swimming but tend to avoid beaches. A Maltese paradox: excellent swimming, beautiful sea, but some of the dirtiest, noisiest and most crowded beaches in the Mediterranean. When I do go for a swim, I look for beaches that resemble a faded 1970s postcard. And I want minimal facilities – the more primitive the beach, the better.
Therein lies the appeal of Gozo’s Għar Qawqla, Xwejni and San Blas. You can get a cold beer and a bite without having to suffer the bling, blaring music, concrete and sludge. And what’s more, no sunbeds and umbrellas all ready and waiting (tucked discreetly away instead, awaiting your call). You’re no longer a sardine, you can actually breathe and relax naturally.
It’s low-key, unobtrusive, pristine and serene. Unless of course someone imposes his radio or sound system on you. How selfish and ill-mannered is that? Beaches should be ‘neutral’, with no single group dictating to another.
Because much as I appreciate music, I don’t want to have to listen to someone else’s. What’s wrong with the sound of the sea? This applies to Malta’s restaurants and bars, where all too often I’m asking waiters politely to ‘turn it down’. It’s no surprise that quiet corners for conversation are few and far between here. They’d be more than a niche-market for discerning locals and visitors.
Konrad Mizzi and the government must think us Sliema and St Julian’s folk most ungrateful for not falling over ourselves to applaud the Chalet restoration. Perhaps we’ve been there before. Any talk of ‘leisure facilities’ and ‘private-public partnerships’ sounds like encroachment. So we’re understandably cautious. It all sounds familiarly ‘concrete’ – despite Mizzi’s insistence that no ‘concrete’ plans exist – and frighteningly like a magnet for more litter, more noise and the wholesale appropriation of space by deckchairs and sunbeds. We’ve had enough.
Mizzi seems to think that increasing Malta’s attractions will make it more appealing to tourists. If that’s coded language for further development and modernisation (read commercialisation) then I’d have to disagree.
Which brings me to another Maltese paradox: our obsession with developing the very things that, undeveloped, make Malta special and appealing.
Our beaches don’t need to be privatised. They just need a huge dose of centrally empowered TLC and a national regime of constant maintenance
When are we going to learn that ‘less is more’ and that there is a real niche-market for a simple Mediterranean style? Speaking of which, the artist’s impression of that proposed boutique hotel in Delimara left me cold. All that glassy (but not classy) bling-boxing is misguided, and the obvious inability to create something traditional out of the existing site is worrying in the extreme.
Where after all did Angela Merkel stop for lunch? A hotel buffet typical of thousands of soulless box-ticking ‘five-star’ establishments in business capitals worldwide? Or a rickety table in an authentic restaurant with a charm of its own?
Malta would be a real attraction (not just a ‘promoted’ one) if only we took good care. Our beaches can’t be left to trashing by freelance BBQs and alcohol-fuelled revellers. Strict, enforceable rules are needed: no amplified music, zero tolerance of litter (take it home or wrap it up for disposal in an appropriate bin!), all cigarette butts picked up and glass bottles and cups forbidden (as they should be). For beach parties and barbecues over 10 people, council permission should be mandatory against some form of hefty deposit, to be forfeited (for beach-cleaning) if rules are not observed to the letter.
What Sliema and all our other beaches so desperately need is an independent environmental police force. Also required are fully empowered (and motivated) enforcement officers, with beach cleaners constantly on patrol working hand in hand with the council. Only then will we residents and quality visitors from cleaner lands escape the shocking and disillusioning spectacle of the ‘morning after’: its shards of glass, vomit, faeces, unwanted spaghetti, chicken bones and melted ice-cream.
Our beaches don’t need to be privatised. They just need a huge dose of centrally empowered TLC and a national regime of constant maintenance. Even part-privatisation is a fudge, an excuse to dodge responsibility and sell the ‘family silver’ (or golden sand). Perhaps the ultimate is ‘natural and pristine’. But I can understand the need to carve out pathways in natural rock and install a few unobtrusive showers and ladders. I can also live with a discreet deckchair operator who doesn’t ‘farm’ the entire beach.
This has got to be a joint effort of government and local councils. The need for effective cleaning is now desperate: dustbins need to be emptied on a ‘needs must’ basis and ineffectual, intermittent sweeping must be replaced by ‘on the clock’ power-washing. There is also a need for proper surveillance, on and off the beach. Anyone who litters or disobeys garbage collection times will be fined mercilessly. Taking garbage out 24 hours before collection (or even eight) has got to stop.
If Mizzi wants to ensure that tourists don’t give up on us, he needs to work on the three issues that make that dark day otherwise increasingly real: noise, litter and lack of enforcement. He can start with enforcing the ‘summer’ ban on construction, demolition and excavation in designated tourist zones (an issue just recently come to the fore in Xlendi, with tourists actually leaving). So please, no more permits being handed out by the Building Regulations Office(!) like nuts at Christmas. This kind of abuse is sheer madness. It has to stop.
Because if it doesn’t, no number of Chalets and five-star hotels will ever bring the tourists back. Some already vow never to return.
I’ll let this person have the final word.
“We all booked into a hotel in Malta and paid 320 euros per night per room, bed and b’fast. Diggers worked all day in two building sites right by the hotel, which made it impossible to enjoy the pool or have a rest. Dust and dirt . . . I’ve had enough!”
michelaspiteri@gmail.com