Updated 9.10pm: Adds comments by PL
Several towns currently have no active police stations forcing residents to go to neighbouring areas to seek police assistance, at least in one case in a container.
If Santa Venera and Pieta residents require police assistance their nearest police station is in a container in Ħamrun.
Addressing a press conference on Thursday outside the Msida police station which is currently closed for refurbishment, Shadow Minister for Home Affairs, Security and Reforms Darren Carabott listed numerous localities that lack a police station including Żebbuġ, Mellieħa, Swieqi, Pembroke, Għargħur, Gżira, Attard, Balzan, Rabat, Dingli, Mdina, Kalkara, Isla, Birgu, Xgħajra, Fgura, Luqa, Tarxien, Mqabba, Kirkop, Safi, Qrendi, and Mġarr. Gozitans can seek police assistance at a police station either in Rabat or Mġarr and “occasionally Marsalforn when a community police officer is available to use the station as an office”.
“The country needs greater investment to ensure every citizen feels safe in their locality,” Carabott said. “Every resident has the right to feel reassured that their security is being safeguarded as public safety should be a priority.”
However, in a statement issued Thursday evening, the PL countered that the “police have never had this amount of stations serving across the country and a police present with the community police all over the country”.
Apart from the refurbishment works underway at the Msida station, the PL statement point out there are works ongoing in Ħamrun, Rabat and Gżira. The station in Mtarfa will be transformed into a second Domestic Violence Hub.
In recent years the government had opened a new police station in Marsascala, the first Gender and Domestic Violence Unit in Santa Lucija, overhauled a number of stations such as those of Marsalforn and Siġġiewi which are now operating 24/7 while replacing secondary stations that were traditionally closed and started to be converted as community policing offices while opening new ones such as the one in Marsaxlokk.
People do not even need to go to a police station to file a report as they can use the remote reporting facility and communicate with the police online.
Msida mayor Charles Selvaggi said the police station in his town has been closed for almost 500 days since October 2023 for renovations but works have been “at a standstill for months”.
The mayor stated that the Council has not been informed why the works have halted, nor has it been given any indication of when they will resume and be completed, despite the closure being described as "temporary."
Highlighting the number of thefts that have recently occurred in Msida, Selvaggi said “these alone demonstrate the urgent need for a 24-hour operational police station”. The mayor had written to Minister Byron Camilleri offering part of the local council’s premises as a 24-hour police station but so far the minister has not replied, leaving Msida residents with police presence only from Monday to Friday for a few hours a day.