A couple of days ago I was doing my usual dance of looking for parking in an unfamiliar place, when I found a spot right next to what looked like a barren, derelict square. I got out of the car to see a few small groups of mothers with their children. It took me a few seconds to realise that this grey, dilapidated space was a ‘park’. Not only was it depressing but it was dangerous. The benches were falling apart with pieces of wood and rusty nails jutting out of them pointedly like instruments of torture, the shabby gazebo in the middle looked like something that you would find in Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting; everything just looked drained and tired.

As my eyes took everything in, a little girl who had clearly just started to experiment with running, took a few rushed steps forward, lost her footing and fell onto the hard concrete. She predictably burst into tears and her mother rushed to comfort her. It was honestly one of the saddest things I had seen in a while. All I could think was: is this the best we can do for our children?

Of course, some might point out the fact that the space was just old and needed refurbishment but the truth is that, even when it comes to supposedly new projects that are meant to be family- friendly, concrete seems to be the key attraction. Over the last year or so, I’ve seen renders of several projects, each uglier and more desolate than the one before it. Parks that look more like glorified car parks, shrines to ugliness and greed. It makes you wonder if these people have ever actually seen a tree in real life or been abroad but then you visit their Instagram pages and realise that they’ve had the benefit of leaving this country a hundred times a year more than you have. Maybe that’s why they’re so reluctant to make things nicer for the man in the street who can’t afford to go to Italy every other weekend.

I’ll never forget seeing what was done to Ċikku Fenech’s former field last month; I literally couldn’t believe my eyes. Who exactly is that ‘park’ for? Certainly not young families. Can you imagine leaving the concrete box you barely afford to live in to take your children down to an equally grey space with a few sad, sparse trees scattered around? And then we wonder how the collective mental health of the country has plummeted to never before seen depths. We are clearly part of a post-apocalyptic experiment that we didn’t ask for.

I wish I could say that I was shocked by the photos Adrian Delia posted of piles of rubbish in Birkirkara earlier this week but, in all honesty, I’ve seen scenes like those all over the island and absolutely no one who has the power to do something seems to care.

I don’t know what it’s going to take to get the message through but this country cannot continue to operate this way. People should be consulted about the kind of parks they want to see; more emphasis needs to be placed on aesthetics.

Beauty is not something which should be an afterthought; it should be central to decision-making. What we build today is meant to be our love letter to future generations; is this what we want our letter to say?