Valletta residents have voiced their disappointment about plans to develop the Evans Building into a new tourism site, complaining that the needs of the community are being sidelined in favour of commercial interests.

The government last week announced plans to award Valletta Luxury Project a 65-year concession for the building after the company made the most advantageous bid of €1.2 million annually.

Although Evans Building is considered to be located in a valuable tourism site, the area is primarily residential and the building is immediately surrounded by several social housing blocks and a primary school.

Reacting to the news on social media, many residents felt their needs are being ignored when it comes to the management of the capital city and many suggested holding a protest.

“It’s going to offend Valletta residents who have been asking for a long time for Evans Building to be turned into an old people’s home and childcare centre, neither of which exist in Valletta. I think it is time for a protest because there are already many boutique hotels,” one woman said.

“No one from this government nor the one that preceded it actually care about Valletta residents, except when an election is on the way,” a man commented.

“A little window dressing and everything is forgotten while they continue to chip away at the little there is left, and we die a natural death.”

In a video, Valletta resident Arist Cordina said it was a “grave atrocity” for the government to give away Evans Building and turn it into a hotel when the community is desperate for services that could benefit their well-being.

Cordina said it was important to speak up now more than ever, particularly to advocate for the needs of the elderly and children of Valletta, for whom resources are always dwindling.

“The perfect thief doesn’t wait for you to leave the house to make his move but, instead, waits for you to fall asleep and takes what he wants from right under your nose,” he said.

“What I mean to say is, the thief’s biggest weapon is silence, and it is the very same silence that is being wielded by the Valletta local council in this situation.”

Cordina appealed to residents to speak up and make their opposition to the project known because, so far, the council had made no move to do so.

“In Gżira, the mayor, Conrad Borg Manchè, kept fighting and succeeded in not allowing a petrol station in a public garden but the Valletta council has never done anything like this for us,” he continued.

“Maybe it’s because they are fed up or because they know that they have no say.”

Valletta residents, he urged, should put their political allegiances aside and unite as one front in dealing with this issue.

“For once, think of your families and not of your political parties, think of your families and your friends,” he said.

It is “cruel”, he pointed out, that the elderly of Valletta do not have the opportunity to remain in their locality when they get older and need help as the town does not have a home for the elderly.

Young families also struggle because there is no childcare centre in Valletta, he added.

“Valletta has become one large hotel and restaurant, and residents have no rights and no say on what happens to their locality or their homes,” he said.

“But where the council is silent, speak up and stand up to be counted. Valletta has nothing to gain from another hotel. Not a single one of these buildings has ever given anything back to our community, so, for once, speak up for yourselves and your families.”

Composer and author Alex Vella Gregory also expressed concern that Valletta is increasingly becoming gentrified, to the detriment of its character and the people who make their lives there.

“Every time you gut, throw away its memory, evict its residents and prevent them from going back and try to reduce it to a product… you are killing Valletta,” he said.

What is happening to Valletta is only a symptom of what Vella Gregory called a “national illness”.

“Everywhere we are destroying stories and communities and, in the emptiness that they leave, in come speculators and, with them, greed abuse and division,” he continued.

“This can only sow more fear and anger – fertile ground for hatred and violence. Valletta residents and the Maltese in general deserve better.”