Elton John concert

Floriana local council has directed me to state the following with respect to the report (June 26) on the above subject.

The organisers of the concert referred to the council's permit conditions and they intimated that these conditions precluded them from erecting the scaffolding on the granaries and, consequently, they had no option but to place the scaffolding on the street.

The council would like to point out that, assuming the organisers' good faith, they have nonetheless interpreted these conditions wrongly as it is widely known that the council never objected to structures being erected on the granaries as, in fact, has often been the case, as long as the necessary precautions are taken.

In this case that would have meant that wooden chocks would be placed under the scaffolding to prevent marks on the surface or any other damage, something which the organisers have effectively done and for which the council has not raised any objection.

With regard to the application with the Malta Environment and Planning Authority it must be stated that this application appeared regularly on the website of the Mepa and it was advertised in the press as prescribed by law as any other normal application. Therefore, the council was not really at fault when it aired its views on the application.

The organisers did not need a development permit. The council feels that when an application which does not require a permit is lodged, this should be made clear to the applicants at the initial stages and the authority should not let an application go through most of the procedure, wasting its time and money needlessly in the process.

The comments by Mario Falzon that "this whole thing is being blown out of proportion" are shocking when considering that they are coming from the chief executive of the Malta Transport Authority, which is supposed to pride itself more than anyone else on seeing that traffic on our roads is managed efficiently and without undue inconvenience and delay.

Mr Falzon, maybe unknowingly, hit the nail on the head when he stated: "No such fuss had been created when one of the main lanes in Floriana had to be closed for about three months for the restoration of Portes des Bombes". Unfortunately, however, his own comments are the authority's downfall because, while this time round the authority decided on the closure of certain streets without consulting the council and without providing an alternative traffic management plan to cater for the expected disruption of the normal heavy traffic flow, on the occasion of the Portes des Bombes restoration a proper meeting, precisely to discuss management traffic flow, was held at the council offices, at the request of the architect responsible, and things were planned well in advance and, consequently, everything proceeded smoothly. This is the difference between having things done professionally and having them done in a haphazard way.

So it is neither a question of refusing a permit for the Elton John concert nor that of a no-win situation, as suggested by Mr Falzon, but simply one which should have been dictated by seriousness and plain common sense.

Finally, Police Commissioner John Rizzo said that the authority and local councils often gave the "go ahead for roads to be closed for various reasons often causing traffic havoc".

I would like to point out, to remove any doubts whatsoever, that this was not the case with Floriana local council, which always informs the district police when a road closure is envisaged, giving them the opportunity to raise any objections or provide suggestions.