Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1545608
4 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 28 JUNE 2026 NEWS How I got a caravan coastal parking permit without even owning one CONTINUES FROM PAGE 1 Last week, Naxxar mayor Christopher Deguara had called for tougher enforcement against the caravans occupying public land at Baħar iċ-Ċagħaq, arguing that the bays are being taken over to the detriment of residents. The permits that allow people to station those caravans, he said, bear the Naxxar council's name and logo, yet the council has no power to grant or refuse a single one. When I spoke to him, the may- or set out just how loose the system is. The bays, he told Mal- taToday, are now occupied by campers and caravans to the det- riment of families who want to use them; the council had twice submitted by-laws to designate where caravans could park, only to be rebuffed. He flagged flaws that go further still. People with caravans, he said, can take out permits for far longer than a month. According to the mayor, own- ers apply through a central portal, and if the application is approved, the permit is issued automatically in the council's name, without the council han- dling it. It is a system the council has been fighting since 2023, when its own by-law to control cara- vans along the Coast Road was rejected without a proper ex- planation, even though Mellieħa and Marsaskala were allowed near-identical rules. The flaws he described seemed almost too generous to be real. So, I decided to test them and applied for a permit myself. Inventing a caravan in three clicks So, without owning a caravan, I logged in to the local permits portal with my electronic iden- tity. From there, it was a matter of clicking through three short steps. I picked the Naxxar Local Council from a dropdown, then selected the permit for the tem- porary placing of caravans and campervans outside the camping areas. Next, the form asked about my caravan. I gave it one. I said it was 22-feet long, that it slept four, that it had a kitchen and no engine, a tidy little description of a vehicle that exists only in the boxes I had just filled in. Where the form invited me to attach a photograph, I uploaded one I had pulled off from Facebook Marketplace. The system took it without complaint. No registration num- ber was requested, no ownership document, nothing to tie that picture to me or to confirm the caravan was real, let alone mine. T h e form also asked me to declare my age, for which I ticked the box stating I was over 60, and somehow, the system took my word for it. I am in my early 20s. There was no request for an ID scan, no cross-check against the e-ID I had logged in with mo- ments earlier. For those over 60, a permit costs €1; for everyone else, it is €15. I had just made myself a pensioner with one untroubled click, and the fee fell according- ly. I dragged a marker across a map to a spot on the shoreline of Baħar iċ-Ċagħaq, gave it a random number, paid my euro on- line, and that was that. The gap before enforcement Minutes later, per- mit NXR-2026-55180 landed in my inbox, dressed in the Naxxar Local Council's letterhead, complete with a line for its executive secretary's sig- nature, the very council that, by its own mayor's account, never saw my application and could not have stopped it. It is valid from the morning of 30 June to the afternoon of the following day and instructs me to tape it to the windscreen of my caravan. It caps the caravan at four adults, and warns that breaking the conditions carries fines of between €100 and €500, with another €50 for every day the offence continues. All of which assumes there is a caravan to inspect, an age to ver- ify, and a person who is who they say they are. In my case, there was none of that. The mayor says enforcement is what is missing on the ground, and those who settle in along the coast can grow comfortable enough to wave swimmers away from a public shore. What my euro bought me is a glimpse of the gap before en- forcement even enters the pic- ture—a permit handed out, in a council's name, to someone who proved nothing and owned nothing at all. What the law says, and what the system does The Temporary Placing of Car- avans in Localities Regulations were introduced in July 2023, partly in response to pressure from the Naxxar Local Council itself, which had been raising concerns about caravan occupa- tion along the Coast Road since April that year. The council's own by-law to regulate caravan use had been rejected without explanation, despite near-identical rules be- ing approved in Mellieħa, Mar- saskala, and Sannat. Regulation 4 states that no one may place a caravan without the council's prior written authori- sation. Regulation 7 states that applications shall be made to the council of the locality in ques- tion. Yet by the mayor's account, and by my own experience, the council is not involved at any point. Deguara has called on the po- lice and LESA to intensify en- forcement and has argued that the permits themselves should be removed from the automat- ed system entirely. "This is why these permits should be issued by the government instead," he said. Three years after the regula- tions came into force, a permit was issued to me for a 24-hour spot with a caravan I do not have. It's a farce by any other name! Naxxar Mayor Christopher Deguara The permit that I would need to fix to my phantom caravan's windscreen Receipt of the €1 payment The permit I received within minutes The caravan I don't own and found on Facebook Marketplace