Marsascala local council divided over Zonqor

The debate surrounding plans to build the “American University of Malta” project – funded entirely by Jordanian investors - at Żonqor point in Marsascala has divided the Marsascala council itself, as seen on tonight’s current affairs discussion forum Reporter.

Saviour Balzan welcomed the seaside town's mayor and deputy mayor, both from the Labour party to today's discussion on the choice of location for the proposed university.

Whilst mayor Mario Calleja described the project as positive, saying he agreed with the development as long as it was completed “causing the minimum of environmental damage,” his deputy, Desiree Attard said that she felt the project could not be built at Żonqor.

“You can call a project a development when it has advantages as well as disadvantages. In this location it will not bring the advertised advantages. I feel it cannot be built at Zonqor.”

Attard said that the when the government had proposed opening a national park in the area, it was doing nothing new, pointing out that it had already been earmarked for that status long before. “In the contest between public and private interests, public land should always be preserved.”

“My concern is not Nationalist or Labourite, I am not speaking from a political perspective, I simply want the environment to be safeguarded,” said the councillor.

She said she welcomed the investment, but disagreed that investment necessitated construction, pointing to the empty Jerma Palace Hotel, empty plots and roads that needed restoration works.

When Balzan asked the mayor why the university had to be built on virgin land, Calleja replied that it could only serve to revive the area, from an economic perspective. “God forbid that it not be built there. When the Jerma closed in 2007, Marsascala died.” He pointed out that the site had been earmarked as a landfill by the previous administration and praised the Prime Minister “for being so transparent and consulting with the people.” He pointed to PN minister Ninu Zammit’s plans to build a reverse osmosis plant to the area.

Calleja said he had given all councillors an opportunity to air their views on the matter during a meeting on the project. “Some did not agree,” he said. He added that he had spoken to some fifteen to twenty residents from the locality who, he said, had expressed their disappointment with the development, but that these talks had established that the most important thing was that the coast remained untouched, that no obstacles to access be put in place for local residents, and that the farmers who have fields there are not turfed out of their lands.