Kappara kindergarten or 'rubbish dump'

Carmel Debono has defended "the fuss Kappara residents are making" about a proposed kindergarten in the area (September 1). He queries the value of property near a school as compared to property values in another area. He claims that people living near a school go through what he refers to as an "unreasonable hardship for the full nine months of the scholastic year". He also chastises, in my humble opinion unreasonably, sleeping policemen and calls them "a burden for motorists". He further declares that Kappara is burdened with too many embassies, private offices, houses being turned into maisonettes etc. He ends his contribution by thanking, on behalf of Kappara residents, the San Gwann council for "the good work carried out".

I shall not go into the merits of the proposed kindergarten. However I wish to ask the correspondent whether he ever wondered what the value of property near a "rubbish dump" is when compared to property values in another area even if this other area is near a kindergarten or a school. If too many embassies (three as far as I am aware), private offices and maisonettes are a burden to Kappara, what does the correspondent consider a dangerous "rubbish dump" to be? He agrees with what he quotes the San Gwann mayor as stating that "schools and all other business-related activities should be confined to commercial and not residential areas". Shall we, according to him, stage a symbolic protest to remove doctors', lawyers' and architects' offices from the Kappara area?

I hope Mr Debono is concerned about all Kappara and not only with the area/s of the proposed kindergarten and/or the Chiswick House School. If he is, may I invite him to visit the lower part of Gallina Street (corner with Birkirkara Road) in the same Kappara where he lives and then declare whether he should still thank the San Gwann council for the good work being carried out on behalf of Kappara residents.

He ought to know also that correspondence on the subject of this Kappara "rubbish dump" has been on-going with the San Gwann council, the authorities and through the newspapers much more than the three years he mentions when reference was made in the On the Dot column regarding the subject that he is complaining about.

The situation regarding the Kappara "rubbish dump" is much worse now and, this, thanks to the San Gwann council for its non-action in this regard despite the hard work of my friend, Kurt Guillaumier, mayor of San Gwann.