Renzo Piano's plans for Valletta's entrance may have mesmerised people but shopowners under the City Gate arcades, set to lose their premises, are angry for being ignored.

Entrepreneur Reginald Fava was "disappointed" and "disgusted" at the way the government ignored shop owners at City Gate, who will have to make way for the grandiose Valletta project when the arcades beneath which they operate are demolished.

"No consultation whatsoever has taken place and we are absolutely in the dark as to what will happen to our shops," an irritated Mr Fava said.

"The government gave Renzo Piano his brief, so it knew from the onset that our shops would have to go. We expected to be informed."

He said that a government surveyor turned up at his pharmacy one day to take the necessary measurements and informed his employees that the shop had to close down.

"I find this attitude objection-able," Mr Fava said.

His pharmacy, Chemimart, employs 10 people and it has been operating from beneath the arcades since 1968 like most of the other shops there.

"Will the government give us an alternative place, offer compensation or simply throw us out," he asked.

Less worried by the impact of the project was Alfred Mifsud, the chairman of Crystal Finance Ltd, which also operates an outlet at City Gate. He admitted to not being consulted but said the project was still at consultation stage.

"I do not believe that the rights of a shop here and there should supersede the rights of the public. Even so, it must be noted that shop owners also have rights that must be respected," he said, confident that shop owners will be consulted at some stage.

Valletta's new-look entrance will do away with the arcades and the shops on one side of Freedom Square. The outlets operating from the ruins of the old opera house will also have to close down as they do not feature in Mr Piano's plans.

The work on the project is supposed to start next January and the government wants to finish it by the end of this Administration in four years' time.

The shops are on a government lease, which expires at the end of this year. Mr Fava, who is also chairman of the group of importers, distributors and retailers of the Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry, insisted that shop owners had rights and also obligations towards their em-ployees.

"This is arrogance and I am against arrogance from whatever quarter it comes," he said.

Similar words were expressed by the owner of Zak shoe store, Charles Borg. The shoe store under the arcades employs four people. "We are totally in the dark about our future. By October, I should be placing my orders for the summer season of 2010 and I do not know whether I should be placing them or not," Mr Borg said.

He raised another issue of concern for shop owners in Valletta: parking.

Mr Borg said the project would do away with almost 2,500 car park spaces because the Yellow Garage area would be converted into a garden and cars would no longer be able to park on Freedom Square and the road above City Gate.

"I do not know why the government did not consider an underground car park beneath Freedom Square like the one that was proposed during the Labour Administration between 1996 and 1998. I question whether the government's haste to finish the project by the end of its term in office has forced it to abandon the car park plan," Mr Borg said.

He is not miffed by the argument that shop owners should have known what the plans were.

"If we were to abide by that philosophy we would not have invested or imported another shoe since 1988 when the first plans for City Gate were announced," Mr Borg said.