(Adds ministry's reaction)
The Sliema council is waiting to meet the Transport Minister and Transport Malta to discuss a draft report it prepared containing solutions and alternatives of how the residential parking scheme it had been stopped from implementing on a trial period could be improved.
Addressing a news conference this morning, mayor Anthony Chircop said the report followed a number of meetings with stake holders, mainly businesses and residents.
Among other things the draft proposes different time limitations in commercial, residential and school areas.
It says teachers should carpool or use school transport and that Arriva should reintroduce a Sliema circular bus, which the council used to organise some years ago.
The Sliema council announced a residential parking scheme and put up the relevant notices last Feburary. In May, following a teachers' strike ordered by the Malta Union of Teachers, the government suspended the scheme, which had just started to be implemented on a trial basis.
Then, the council had given the government three weeks for talks and on the last day of the three weeks, it met the Parliamentary Secretary responsible for councils Jose Herrera and presented him with the draft report. This was also passed on to the Transport Minister and TM.
Mr Chircop said that TM had e-mailed the council saying that the minister would like to meet them when they presented a final draft. But the council did not want to come up with a final draft before its discussions with the minister and the authority, the mayor said.
"I am only asking for the council to be listened to and for our proposals to be actively considered. Our feedback so far does not reflect any enthusiasm."
Mr Chircop said the council has also been asked, through another letter from TM, to remove the notices that had been put up for the scheme or they would be removed by the authority at the council's expense.
He noted that the scheme had not been withdrawn but suspended and the legal notice announcing it had been issued in 2009.
"We did everything according to law. If the signs are removed, the council should be compensated for its troubles and expenses," he said.
TM DRAWING UP STUDY ON PARKING SYSTEMS
In a statement this afternoon the ministry said that it was open for discussions with everyone, including the Sliema council.
Transport Minister Joe Mizzi said that TM was carrying out a study on different parking systems to be in a position to draw up a policy suitable for Malta's circumstances. The study will take into consideration whether such schemes should be revised or abolished.
The ministry said that no council was above the law and in the past days TM suspended similar schemes in St Paul's Bay and Naxxar.
In the case of Sliema, one problem was that the council decided to implement its scheme four years after it had been approved. The scheme had been based on studies which had now expired in view of the drastic change in traffic in Sliema.
Another problem was that the scheme was included in a legal notice without a trial period.
The council had also breached the conditions of the temporary original permit because it was evident that not enough consultation had taken place.
The ministry also noted that the 2009 legal notice had been withdrawn through another legal notice published last month.