The Marsascala Residents Network has written to the Prime Minister asking for Marsascala Bay to no longer be identified as a site for a yacht marina.
It called for a process to safeguard and protect the bay should be commenced.
Draft plans for a yacht marina were made public in August 2021 when Transport Malta published a pre-qualification document that suggested most of the bay would be taken up by pontoons and yacht facilities.
But during the election campaign in February, Prime Minister Robert Abela said that the project would be "stopped at once" following widespread scepticism among locals.
In its letter, see pdf link below, the MRN said the yacht marina would have led to compromised water quality at Tal-Magħluq, destroyed the protected posidonia oceanica, threatened economic activities related to fisheries and coastal tourism.
Despite Abela's 2022 assurance, residents fear that the bay could once again be targeted for development
Attached files
The residents now want the government to definitively protect the bay from any future marina speculation by formally striking off a list of potential marina sites.
They cited a pledge, made earlier this month by Prime Minister Robert Abela, to protect Ħondoq ir-Rummien in Gozo from future development as a case in point.
Marsascala Bay is listed as a potential marina site in a 2006 local plan for southern Malta, which states that the bay "offers the right coastal morphology for a potential yacht marina."
Government has said that the growth of the maritime sector has made it necessary to develop more marinas.
tIn its letter, the Network asked the Prime Minister to seal with certainety the fate of the bay permanently by stopping the bay's identification as a possible site for a yacht marina.