When is enough not enough?
Not only has the government scrapped Piano’s plans to turn Valletta ditch into a garden where people can roam about, giving the excuse that it needs the money for other things (like paying Taghna Lkoll sinecures), but now we hear that it’s going to turn it into a road.
Times of Malta followed up the story after noticing workmen down there laying a road centre-strip in the ditch.
I will never understand this drive towards utilitarian ugliness. It is an indication of a mentality that has never evolved beyond peasant survivalist thinking: everything has to be functionally useful, otherwise it is a liability and a waste. Beauty for its own sake? Forget it? The idea that people need to have beauty to grow and be mentally sound? Forget that too. A place for relaxation? Come off it – it must also be a place of business, like a spa.
The devil is in the detail when you’re working out just how recently out of the backwoods a society is.
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http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20150204/local/controlled-traffic-can-use-the-city-gate-ditch.554683
Does no one in Malta give a hoot about our (already limited) open/green/recreational spaces?
I refer to the encroachment of pavements and promenades by establishments in Sliema, Gzira, etc, unsightly car parks in the place of what could be gardens or piazzas (Ferries and Spinola come to mind), the selling off of Manoel Island (blessed by a PN government), and the cherry on the cake – the relocation of the hawker stalls to our city’s elegant entrance.
Unfortunately you can’t teach beauty and culture to barbarians. And the ignorant will never evolve out of their caveman mentality. Sorry, but that’s Malta for you.
Exactly Mintoff’s mentality . Nothing has changed after all these years of Nationalist administration and education .
You are so right, Daphne.
We have Mdina ditch as an example. It is so very beautiful. Imagine the difference if it had been changed instead into a road or parking area.
http://www.hybridparks.eu/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Malta10.jpg
Just when you think the news can’t get worse, it does.
Il-Kamra tal-Periti will now be asked to check the quality of the tarmac while Kenneth ZT will check if its colour fits the landscape.
parking for the masses is the sole priority so that a select few can leave their car parked and stationary for a full 8 hour day and to hell with the rest of the world, never will there be a better incentive to use public transport like no or limited parking for Valletta. this is surely no a government of open spaces or positive environment projects! Why are we even surprised.
The next insult planned for the Piano project is the further defacement of one of the walls by the attachment, with huge bolts, of (yet another) gross commemorative ‘plak’ recording the opening by this or that prime minister or ex prime minister, which was blessed by some bishop, all in the esteemed presence of the spouse of the prime minister and one or two other celestial bodies.
And after the ceremony is over we can all adjourn to Castille for high tea.
Let’s not forget that the other idea which originated from the Labour Party (Charles Buhagiar) when Dr. Sant was leader. They wanted to dig the ditch down to below sea level so that boats can pass through from Marsamxett to Grand Harbour. They never change.
At least this would have been more interesting than a ruddy road.
The prelude to the multi-storey car park.
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/news/national/43332/no_public_garden_in_valletta_ditch_car_park_instead#.VNH_atLF9mM
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/news/budget_2015/46299/a_car_park_in_the_valletta_ditch_airstrip_for_gozo_among_budget_plans#.VNH_l9LF9mM
Note how lack of funds is replaced by concrete.
It is the same mentality as classifying an open space (xaghra, square, etc.) as ideal for a plot to build.
It is the same mentality as avoiding a corner house since that will oblige you not to build all the way to the pavement. The non-built part (patio or similar) within the property perimeter is considered as a waste.
It is the same mentality that if you build a house, you do not allocate space for a two-car garage or a well since both are considered as waste with the result of having one less room (usually a showcase sitting room)
How many houses in Malta have built up the spaces within their houses that were originally designed for a garden?
Too many.
And Astrid had nothing to say.
If this is indeed going to happen then the fortifications will soon turn black from the exhaust fumes of cars.
Why is the Labour government hellbent on destroying everything that the PN has done? Is it only greed and envy?
They are slowly but surely taking Malta back to their idea of what constituted ‘golden years’, and then it will be up to a PN government to sort out the messes they have made, as they had to do in the past.
We don’t have enough water to fill a ditch, but we have enough cars. As for common sense? What common sense?
Enough said.
In the 19th century the Valletta ditch was the place to go to hire a man with a horse and cart, if you wanted to move and transport something heavy or large.
These men with their horses and mules just hung out in that vicinity every day waiting for potential customers.
We can’t forget that Mintoff had divided a bastion to make a road that leads to the Mediterranean Conference Centre and the Lower Barrakka was disfigured. Now it’s the time for more of the same.
.
We will never learn.