Project Green, set up to great fanfare a little over 18 months ago and armed with a €700 million kitty, promised to bring “green recreational spaces a short walk from home”.
But it has since faced accusations of greenwashing, with several of its landmark projects stuck in the limbo of planning and procurement red tape, with other completed projects sometimes going under the radar, leading many to wonder when the promised green spaces will materialise.
On Sunday, Times of Malta reported how plans to build underground tunnels to divert traffic away at Floriana are "not feasible" while a similar plan for San Ġwann is being reassesed.
Project Green say that they have their hands full, with some 90 projects on the go, all “slated for implementation between 2025 and 2027”. This, the agency says, is in addition to the 14 projects it has already opened to the public.
But these 14 completed projects include some that were inaugurated before Project Green even existed, such as Kalkara's Ġnien ir-Rnella, opened in October 2022, three months before the agency's launch.
Others, such as Żabbar's San Klement Park and the Bengħajsa family park were inaugurated just weeks after Project Green's launch.
A Project Green spokesperson told Times of Malta that the agency will be finishing works on seven projects between now and the end of the year, including works at Independence Gardens in Birżebbuġa, the gardens of Villa Portelli in Kalkara, and the St Michael Hospice garden in Santa Venera.
Meanwhile, the agency says it plans to complete another 25 projects next year and will kick off complex procurement procedures for slower-burn projects like the long-touted Santa Venera roof garden.
But let’s take a look at where some of the most widely touted projects announced by the agency are at.
San Ġwann pedestrianisation
One of the first projects announced by the agency at its launch in January 2023, work on the project has yet to get off the ground, although plans have long since been drawn up.
A planning application (PA/00199/24) for the first phase of the project, comprising a car park and open space at Misraħ Lewża, was submitted just over a year ago, in August 2023.
The project’s architects suspended the application shortly afterwards, after public entities vetting the application required more detailed study on some aspects of the proposal, such as an electrical load breakdown.
Project Green say that the requirements put forward by the PA “required further investigations that could not be completed within the short timeframes stipulated by the PA”, forcing them to put the application on hold while this work was carried out.
Meanwhile, initial plans to dig a tunnel under the road appear to be hanging by a thread, with the agency having carried out a traffic impact assessment to find alternative solutions.
A Project Green spokesperson said that the agency will be unfreezing the application and proceeding with the permit process “in the coming days”, with the first phase of the project completed by September 2026, and the full project done by the end of 2028.
Wied Inċita
The plan to transform the former ELC nursery into a public park was announced this April, with Robert Abela promising that works would be completed “within a few months”.
By that point, a planning application (PA/02228/24) for the site had already been submitted a month earlier.
Project Green say that they expect the first stage of the project, roughly 20,000 square metres of open space, to be opened to the public by this November.
Santa Venera tunnels roof garden
This project, announced back in 2019 has faced several false dawns (and budget increases) over the years.
Project Green now say that the project is being “enhanced further” and that a new proposal “that now also includes retail spaces underneath the green open space” is ready.
But this is a particularly tricky project, with a tunnel which is unique in Malta and requires foreign expertise in tunnel engineering.
The project’s permit application is being drawn up and should be submitted by the end of the year, with the project finally getting off the ground in 2026, Project Green say.
Hospice Garden
A project to transform the Adelaide Cini Institute into a new hospice centre has been underway for several years, with plans first submitted in mid-2018 and approved a year later.
Some 2,700 square metres of the site will be turned into a green space, funded through Project Green’s community greening grant.
Project Green say that the project’s implementation is underway and will be completed by the end of this year.