Fort Cambridge restoration to finally start in July

Work on the restoration of Fort Cambridge is set to start in the next two months, Paul Attard, a director of Gap Holdings – the company responsible for the Fort Cambridge development – has told MaltaToday.

Over the past months residents complained about the state of neglect of the site beneath the luxury Fort Cambridge apartments, which has been exposed to the elements and has even been the brunt of mysterious fires.

“The place right now has become a rubbish dump,” one resident who spoke to MaltaToday complained.

The MEPA board had approved the permit for the restoration of Fort Cambridge on 15 July 2010, as a condition in the permit for the Fort Cambridge development, entrusted to Gap Holdings.

But the promised restoration works have yet to commence.

Gap Holdings issued a call for tender for the restoration works, which is now in the “final stages of adjudication”.  

“If no unforeseen circumstances occur works are scheduled to start within the next 60 days,” Paul Attard told MaltaToday.

The Superintendence for Cultural Heritage has also been informed that Gap Holdings will be starting restoration works. But the Superintendence is still waiting for the programme of restoration works.

Attard referred to works carried out before 2010, which consisted in the removal of a swimming pool and other structures that had previously encumbered the fort, when it was part of the former Crowne Plaza hotel. “This work was important to identify the original core structures of the Fort.”
When asked why works had yet to commence nearly four years after the issuance of the permit, a MEPA spokesperson explained that although a planning permit has an expiry date, “it does not stipulate by when works have to be carried out”.

When asked what steps MEPA is taking to protect the site until the restoration works start, the spokesperson replied that the authority was only responsible for monitoring and enforcing permit conditions once works commence on the site.

Fort Cambridge was one of the British-built fortresses in the system of defence created at Tigné Point.

The pentagon-shaped fort dates to the 1880s and is similar in design to Fort Rinella in Kalkara. In fact, both forts housed one of the three famous 100-tonne coastal guns, which required a gun crew of 35 – Fort Cambridge was built specifically to accommodate it. Work on it began in 1878 but it was not finished until 1898.

Previously, the fort, formed part of the Crowne Plaza Hotel. A swimming pool had been created and parts of the ramparts were covered up so as to support other hotel venues such as the ‘Big Blue’ lido.

The restoration, approved by the MEPA board in 2010, will bring the fort back to its original layout through the cleaning of stonework, and opening up of areas, which had previously been blocked or covered over.

When approving the project,  MEPA made it clear that while it had no objection to commercial facilities located in the restored fort, any such development requires a new MEPA application.