Forgotten Fleur-de-Lys

I have read Anthony Formosa's letter with interest and I am glad that, finally, some of the residents who brought the interest of their political party before the interest of the village of Fleur-de-Lys have come to their senses. I have been preaching the same thing for the last 10 years and had it not been for the insistence of the authorities, our village would have by now had its deserving local council.

Ninety-eight per cent of the residents have signed the petition so that the government gives our village a local council. In fact, when the Fleur-de-Lys civic committee presented its submission to the government, at the time when the village of Mtarfa was rightfully given a local council, in order to save its face, our village was given the title of hamlet.

"A hamlet is a village without a church". Fleur-de-Lys is a parish and has its own church together with over 3,000 residents and 43 streets and carries with it all the requisites necessary to have a local council of its own. So why was it not given a local council? There must be a reason behind it.

According to the local council law, a hamlet should have a committee within the council under which it falls. In this case it is Birkirkara. Birkirkara local council, as Mr Formosa wrote in his letter, ignored the hamlet's needs. The money which belongs to our village was in fact spent on things of less importance than the cleaning of our streets. It also calls a meeting once a year and the complaints our residents make fall on deaf ears.

Let us hope that with the election of the Birkirkara mayor, who happens to be a resident of Fleur-de-Lys, something is done to improve the present situation.

In the meantime, I call on our residents to air their views and insist that Fleur-de-Lys should have a local council of its own.