Green light for Kordin carnival village

The Malta Council for Culture and the Arts today obtained the planning permission to proceed with the construction of a Carnival Village in Kordin.

The Carnival Village will be composed of 21 workshops.   

Culture Minister Mario de Marco said that carnival participants deserved to be working in purposely-built facilities.

"This project is a clear manifestation of government's support of this long-standing Maltese cultural tradition, for which government allocated €700,000," De Marco said. 

De Marco praised the carnival participants for their collaboration on this important initiative  and expressed his satisfaction at the work carried out by the Malta Council for Culture and the Arts for its role in organising annually the Carnival Celebrations.

Tenders for the execution of the works will be issued in the near future.

 The President of the Malta Association of Carnival Participants, Jason Busuttil welcomed this development. 

"This project will address a long standing need by providing suitable all year-round facilities to Carnival participants. We would have preferred a site closer to Valletta, but we will fully support this project. We are looking forward to a speedy conclusion of the project."

MCCA executive director Davinia Galea said this as a huge step forward for Maltese carnival and carnival arts in Malta.

"It will have a positive effect not only on standards of Carnival-making and logistics but also importantly in terms of health and safety of people working on carnival floats."

The new workshops will be conducive to working on new perspectives for carnival including education and transfer of skills. The workshops are expected to be completed in time to be used by float builders in preparation for Carnival 2014.