The teachers’ union has ordered its members who work in Sliema to report an hour late next Tuesday in protest over parking restrictions that came into force on Wednesday.
In the pipeline for years, the Sliema parking scheme attracted heavy criticism over the past few months when Mayor Anthony Chircop announced it would start being rolled out before the summer.
It was introduced on Wednesday in parts of the locality.
Half the parking bays across the busy town are being reserved for residents, who have a permit to display on their cars. Outsiders can only park in these spots for two hours between 8am and 9pm or risk being slapped with a €23.29 fine. Parking is unrestricted in the other half of the spaces.
The scheme prompted a torrent of complaints from residents, shoppers, bus-iness owners and their employees – including teachers.
The Malta Union of Teachers had declared an industrial dispute and called on the authorities to suspend it until a solutionis found.
Yesterday, the MUT said that teaching staff at schools within St Claire College, St Francis School, St Joseph School (primary and secondary) and St Dorothy’s School in Sliema would turn up an hour late on Tuesday.
The union said the local council had ignored its concerns and many teachers would have to leave their classrooms every two hours to move their cars.
MUT added that to date no consultation meeting had been held between the local council and the union or the schools.
When contacted, the mayor said the current local council had not held any discussions about the scheme with stakeholders. All it did was confirm that the permits existed and implemented the scheme that previous councils had been working on.
“We tied up the remaining strings and implemented it according to Transport Malta’s rules.” He said that teachers would have to abide by the same rules other people working in Sliema had to follow. Even with the existence of the scheme, residents would still scramble to find a place to park, he added.
At the same time, the council is wel-coming suggestions through a board it set up to collect feedback.
The council had intended to apply the scheme seven days a week but it was eventually decided that the restrictions would not apply on Sundays.
In a statement the council said the timed parking scheme was being implemented according to LN 200 of 2009, as directed by Transport Malta permits issued in 2006 and 2008.
It said the traffic scenario in the town may have changed since 2008, so while it was carrying on with the implementation of the scheme as prescribed in the legal notice, it had set up a board “to deliberate on the design of the scheme so that it reflects any new situations which may have arisen since then, and which may arise in the future”.
In this way, the council said, the scheme would be continuously updated “to satisfy the Sliema community”.