Ministers Ian Borg and Clayton Bartolo inaugurated the official opening of the new public car park near Għadira Bay. The project was carried out with an investment of around €1 million from the eco-contribution scheme paid for by the tourist establishments and the works were implemented by Projects Plus Ltd.
Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Capital Projects Ian Borg said, “This project will create new facilities and embellish part of our natural heritage for the community on a national level. Undoubtedly it is very important because during the summer days this beach is visited by hundreds of people and every year the problem of a lack of parking spaces continues to grow. Therefore with this investment we will be reducing congestion in the area as people will take less time to find a parking space for their vehicles, while also reducing double and triple parking problems. As we have done in other projects of this kind, we have also included facilities for electric cars as well as motorcycles in order to continue to incentivise the public to use alternative and more sustainable means of transport. The broader vision of the Government is to eventually extend and regenerate the bay in order to give the area a more beautiful and modern look. Therefore we can say that this car park is the first step to lead to this vision for a better and cleaner environment.”
This car park accommodates more than three-hundred-and-fifty vehicles and is also equipped to accommodate motorcycles. It also includes parking spaces for mobility impaired persons. The car park is spread over an area of about 10,000 meters and is also equipped with new lights, rubble walls and storm water drainage systems which will purify rainwater from oils and other chemicals.
In addition, Projects Plus has taken care of embellishing this car park with various trees and shrubs. In all, almost a thousand trees and shrubs were planted. Among them were planted nearly 200 Oleander trees, 96 African Tamarisk trees, Palm trees and nearly 600 Aloe Vera and Deru shrubs.
In his remarks, Minister for Tourism and Consumer Protection Clayton Bartolo highlighted that this car park will be increasing accessibility for tourists as well as Maltese who frequent the largest sandy beach in the country.
“Apart from offering sea and beaches to tourists, we must make sure that the latter have accessible facilities to park their respective vehicle in the shortest time possible,” continued Minister Clayton Bartolo.
Finally, Minister Bartolo reiterated how accessible areas should be there for everyone, so much so that the more these type of facilities are present at a close distance near our beaches, the better the touristic experience will be both foreigners and even locals.
