Marsaxlokk residents upset at plans to excavate a school garden and build a library and local council offices in its place have announced plans to protest on Wednesday.
The public development will see a slice of garden at St Thomas More College primary school that hosts 37 trees developed into a two-storey building Apart from the library and council offices, the building will also house a post office, community centre and lecture halls.
Critics of the project, which include the Nationalist Party, argue that it will gobble up one of the last open spaces left in urban Marsxlokk, suffocating students and disrupting their studies while it is being built.
Marsaxlokk Heritage, which is organising Wednesday’s protest, noted that the Strategic Plan for the Environment and Development (SPED) directs planners to enhance and protect open spaces in urban areas.
It also argued that the development plans were dumped on residents without prior discussion, with a 2018 meeting having only discussed the possibility of moving local council offices to the school.
The protest poster.“No locations or plans were discussed. All of a sudden a development permit was filed without first consulting with the residents,” the NGO said in a statement on Monday.
The NGO is now planning a protest outside the school gate on Wednesday, December 22 at 1.30pm and has urged concerned residents and other civil society groups to join.
Anyone unhappy with the plans can submit an objection to the development application through the Planning Authority website, it added. Around 150 objections had been filed against the plans as of Monday afternoon.
It said that there are many other alternatives to the proposed site, but that Marsaxlokk council was not engaging with it, despite a letter seeking claification.
Writing in The Sunday Times of Malta about the plans, biologist Alan Deidun has argued that a nearby car park was ideally suited to the Marsaxlokk council’s plans.
“The feasibility of this alternative site is so self-evident that the mind boggles as to why it has not been formally considered as a potential candidate,” Deidun wrote.