Fort St Elmo

Various articles and letters have appeared over the past weeks with regard to the terrible state of the lower part of Fort St Elmo. Everyone can see this situation because though there are government security staff supposedly guarding the only entrance, it is literally a free for all.

The persons occupying the lower part of the fort are not only content with wreaking havoc in this area but now and then also venture into the upper part and break into the rooms where we have our stores.

I am writing to remind everyone that 12 years ago we made a proposal for a Carnival Village in the Crown and Horn Works Ditch, in Floriana where the genuine carnival organisers could be moved and where they could have a permanent exhibition and decent working space. After many years, our proposal was put aside to make way for a park-and-ride system and the carnival area was moved to outside the bastion walls next to a main thoroughfare into Valletta.

In 1998, we published a development brief for Fort St Elmo. The brief cannot even start to function or arouse interest unless the place is made clean of all the squatters in the area. No solution will be found for the fort unless the carnival organisers are given another place where to build their floats.

Fort St Elmo is a place of very high quality architectural beauty. It is crying out to be recognised as a very important area of our world heritage city. The time has come to move from words to action and this means only one thing, finding a lasting solution for the carnival organisers. In the meantime, however, we should still be able to ensure that only genuine carnival organisers are allowed access to the area.