Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1510993
6 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 5 NOVEMBER 2023 NEWS JAMES DEBONO THE government will renew for a second time a permit obtained back in 2012 for the construction of an underground car park at the Sliema Ferries. The project, initially approved in the autumn of the Gonzi adminis- tration in 2012, had been shelved following the election of a Labour government in the 2013 general election due to its high cost. The government had already ap- plied to renew the permit in 2018, but no work was undertaken in the subsequent years dominated by the pandemic. During this period infrastructur- al works in the area were focused on the ferry landing station on which works have dragged on for the past four years. The 200-vehicle car park, a pet project for former PN environ- ment and works minister George Pullicino, was meant to allevi- ate parking problems along the Sliema and Gzira Strand. Howev- er, no details have been provided on how the new car park will be managed, despite repeated calls from the Sliema local council for the devolution of public car parks in the locality. Former transport minister Joe Mizzi in 2013 had announced that the car park did not fall within the government's immediate priori- ties, which had found the project's cost exceeded 60% of original pro- jections. The €7 million project, approved by the PA in December 2012, was expected to be financed by €3.5 million in fees from the PA's com- muted parking payment scheme. But one particular challenge faced by the project was that the Sliema Ferries are located on reclaimed land, which is known for flooding. When asked by MaltaToday in 2012 how an underground park- ing facility could be proposed on reclaimed land, Pullicino replied that the government had entrust- ed a renowned marine engineer, Joe Bugeja, who had designed and constructed maritime works both locally and overseas, to oversee the project. The original target completion date for the project was set for April 2013. The proposal included the re- moval of existing parking land- scape areas, excavation works, construction of an underground car park, and an overlying land- scaped deck area. The parking facility was to be situated beneath a landscaped garden and included a steel superstructure feature held by steel cables, mimicking a sailing ship, as well as two 20sq.m hexag- onal kiosks. The garden was to feature foun- tains, the current war memorial, a monument dedicated to Sliema Wanderers football player Tony Nicholl, and another to sculptor Censu Apap. At present, the site is divided in- to two parts: approximately half is used as a parking lot, while the other half is landscaped. The site also incorporates 39 on-street car parking spaces. Plans for Sliema Ferries underground parking resurrected JAMES DEBONO THE Planning Authority's appeals tribunal (EPRT) has re-confirmed its 2019 refusal of a permit for a 3,000sq.m fuel station on the Ra- bat Road, in the vicinity of the St Mary of Victories chapel. The tribunal had already con- firmed this decision in 2021, but subsequently the landowner and applicant Ludwig Camilleri took his case to the law courts, which revoked the refusal and reverted the case back to the tribunal. The court of appeal had upheld Camilleri's argument against the PA's refusal to allow another pet- rol station in breach of the policy banning new gas stations with- in 500m of existing fuel stations, namely the Pit Stop station. Camilleri disputed the refusal, saying the Pit Stop fuel station was 510m away from his site, by using the future configuration of the Central Link Road project. The EPRT had recognised that the distance between the two stations had been "somewhat ex- tended" by the Central Link but said this did not reflect the situa- tion when the fuel station was re- fused, just a week after the approv- al of the Central Link project. The roads project had not even been officially published and works still had not even commenced. Calcu- lating the exact distance between the two stations required the con- clusions of the works, which was impossible at the time of the de- cision. The EPRT has now recognised that this reason for refusing the permit was not valid. But it turned down three other arguments made by Camilleri in his bid to re- voke the refusal. Noting that Camilleri had pre- sented plans to address the rea- sons cited in the original refusal, the EPRT said that by substan- tially downsizing a proposed retail shop and increasing the distance between the fuel station and a nearby borehole, these plans lacked "any clearance from Trans- port Malta". Camilleri's plans had been re- jected a year before the approval of a new policy banning new fu- el stations on agricultural land, and which limited their size to 1,000sq.m outside the develop- ment zones. Therefore, Camill- eri's appeal had to be decided up- on on the basis of the older policy, approved in 2014, which permit- ted 3000sq.m fuel stations on agri- cultural land. Camilleri, the son of former La- bour minister Lorry Sant aide Piju Camilleri, had acquired the Birkir- kara petrol station licence in 2014 with the intention of relocating it to his ODZ land. After considering a site in Salina, deemed a non-starter by the Envi- ronment and Resources Authori- ty, he requested permission for his land on the Rabat Road. The site had been earmarked for a private cemetery in 2011, but this was also precluded by a new policy in 2014. Final refusal for Attard's 'second' petrol station