PN-led council wants Mosta square to be opened again for traffic on weekends

Mosta’s main square is closed off to traffic between Saturday evening and all through Sunday to allow people to enjoy the space in front of the church.

The decision to partly pedestrianise the square, which is also a main thoroughfare for cars, was taken by the previous council following the completion of works to upgrade the area.

However, that decision is now being reviewed with newly-installed Mayor Joseph Gatt telling MaltaToday the square’s closure is causing traffic management problems.

Scenes of children playing in Mosta's main square over the weekend will come to an end as the new PN-led council is slated to remove pedestrianisation on the weekend

He insisted ongoing roadworks in streets around the square are already disrupting how residents commute between the different areas in Mosta and the square’s closure is exacerbating the problem.

“I agree with pedestrianisation but traffic management remains one of the biggest issues in Mosta and people elected us to tackle these concerns,” Gatt said.

The new Nationalist-led council will on Tuesday be discussing a motion calling for the lifting of the restrictions to traffic from the last weekend of August. The Mosta council flipped to the Nationalist Party in June’s local election.

Mosta's PN mayor Joseph Gatt says the council will carry out extensive public consultation in October

Despite the motion speaks of removing the traffic ban outright, Gatt insisted the decision on Tuesday will be a "temporary" one until a thorough public consultation exercise is undertaken in October.

“We intend carrying out a consultation exercise with residents living in the different areas of Mosta to understand their concerns and what they think of pedestrianising the main square,” Gatt said, adding a more permanent decision would be taken after residents are consulted.

But Gatt noted that the previous council had asked for the complete closure of the main square between 9 and 15 August, festa week. “We have to be reasonable and the proposal now is to close the main square to traffic according to festa celebrations as it used to be in the past,” he said.

A normal five-minute voyage from one part of Mosta to another now takes 20 minutes because of road diversions, the mayor said.

Mosta’s main square was thrust into controversy after works to upgrade it dragged on for more than a year causing traffic mayhem. The revamped square was inaugurated a few months ago and it is closed to traffic every weekend between 6:30pm on Saturday and all day Sunday until midnight.

The square’s closure in the weekends has allowed residents and visitors to safely enjoy the vast expanse in front of the church but has also caused inconvenience for commuters. 

Writing on Facebook on Monday, Valletta Cultural Agency head Jason Micallef, a Mosta resident himself, criticised the new council’s decision to end the pedestrianisation exercise. He accused the new council of reneging on its duty to work for a cleaner environment.

“Farewell to cleaner air and a better environment in Mosta’s main square. Farewell to stopping the useless chaotic traffic that passes through Mosta square during the weekend so that the space can be enjoyed by Mosta families. The mayor and the Nationalist majority are stopping all this,” Micallef wrote, describing this as the “first blunder (paprata) by the new mayor Joe Gatt and his friends”.

Labour MEP Daniel Attard also took to Facebook with a post referencing the protests undertaken in Mosta by environmentalists when mature trees were going to be felled late last year. "No more 'environmental' protests in Mosta," he wrote, adding the new council will open the square to traffic all day, everyday.

He later amended the post and clarified that the reference to the protests was not intended as a jibe towards environmentalists but those who "piggybacked" on those protests, a clearer reference to PN councillors.

Note: This article has been amended to reflect the fact that despite the mayor telling MaltaToday the removal of the traffic ban in the square is a temporary measure until a consultation exercise is undertaken in October, the motion the council has in front of it makes no reference to 'temporary'.