Gżira local council, activists to protest Manoel Island access on Saturday

The Gżira local council and activist group Kamp Emerġenza Ambjent are coming together in protest on Saturday to demand that Manoel Island’s foreshore be opened to the public "immediately".

“MIDI have been illegally denying access to Manoel Island for the past 16 years. We now need to show that MIDI isn’t going to fool us any longer and demand that access is opened immediately,” the council and the activist group said in a statement.

The protest will take place at 10.30am at Manoel Island.

Last week, MIDI CEO Luke Coppini said that he was willing to discuss foreshore access, and the consortium had reportedly set up meetings with representatives of the Maltese government to discuss the granting of “some concessions” for the public’s access to the foreshore.

The company, however, insisted in correspondence to Gzira mayor Conrad Borg Manché that it is under no obligation at law to provide access to the foreshore over its private property.

Coppini had also insisted that access to the foreshore was possible for anyone arriving to the island by boat. “Access is not restricted by MIDI, but by the geography of the island or by historical structures and in other instances by the yacht yard.”

On 10 September, Borg Manché and a group of KEA activists broke open a side gate of Manoel Island in a major environmental protest. 

A subsequent attempted clean-up on the site had to be cancelled due to MIDI installing new locks and a significant police presence.

In an interview with ONE News, Coppini had said that people have been forbidden from walking into Manoel Island, so as to prevent them from accessing the historical sites on the island, in particular Fort Manoel and the former Lazzaretto hospital.