'White Rocks to be turned into national park' - PM
Robert Abela said the park will be built simultaneously with the Manoel Island national park
The controversial White Rocks complex in Pembroke will be transformed into a national, open and green park for families, Robert Abela announced Tuesday.
Speaking in parliament in his budget address, the Prime Minister said he would cancel the public call for development on the 450,000 square metre site in Baħar iċ-Ċagħaq "immediately".
“I will make a decision that no government before me had the courage to make,” the Prime Minister told the House, confirming that the current public call for the land’s development would be "cancelled immediately".
"At White Rocks, I want us to build the most beautiful park, and I’m asking environmental NGOs to help us do it," he stated, adding he will guarantee the site is never developed in the future.
The White Rocks is one of Malta's largest remaining tracts of undeveloped public land on the coast.
Two huge parks at one go
Abela said the government will build the park while at the same time also transforming Manoel Island into a national park.
He said the government had secured "clear and written confirmation that the development that was slated for Manoel Island won't happen and the entire island will be turned into a family park".
He added that final agreements were being drafted to ensure the "island returns to the people".
Abela said the two projects would be implemented simultaneously, calling them "big decisions" that mark a change in direction.
The White Rocks Issue: A quarter-century saga
The White Rocks is a sprawling, derelict site situated on the coast between Pembroke and Baħar iċ-Ċagħaq and covers a huge swathe of prime public coastal land.
It was originally built in the 1960s as housing for British military officers and later briefly operated as a holiday complex until it was abandoned in 1995.
Since its closure, the complex has become a ruin, popular with urban explorers and graffiti artists.
Successive administrations have repeatedly attempted to privatise and develop the site and, on Tuesday, Abela accused the PN of trying to develop it twice during their time.
But a Labour government itself launched a new expression of interest in 2015, which led to a consortium being chosen as the preferred bidder for a €400 million luxury village including a seven-star hotel, commercial, and residential units.
Negotiations with this preferred bidder stalled for years, primarily over the valuation of the public land. The government's valuation of the land was reportedly five times higher than the investors' offer, leading to a long-term impasse that left the site in limbo.
Abela's announcement to cancel the development tender and transform the land into a national park is expected to terminate the decades-long process of privatisation attempts and return the expansive coastal area to public use.