Copyright timesofmalta
A €5.5 million project to revamp Spinola Gardens, once promised for completion by 2024, has been quietly shelved, the Tourism Ministry has confirmed. In 2021, the ministry announced it would invest €5.5 million into upgrading Spinola Gardens and Paceville Street in St Julian’s, aiming to improve residents’ quality of life. The ministry announced, at the time, that it would be completed by 2024. However, the project stalled at the design and planning phase. “The indicated project necessitated the uprooting of several trees. A few years ago, the Tourism Ministry had decided to suspend the project to avoid the removal of these trees from the area,” a spokesperson for the ministry said. The spokesperson added: “In future, the government will liaise with the local council and other parties, including the surrounding business and residential communities, to explore new proposals that are acceptable to all stakeholders.” Last week, the shelved project was raised in parliament by former St Julian’s mayor and current PN MP Albert Buttigieg. “They boasted they would regenerate the garden,” Buttigieg said. “Till today, there is the same garden. A garden where you can expect to find people trafficking drugs.” The MP has repeatedly raised safety concerns at Spinola Gardens. In 2020, he told Times of Malta he had been offered drugs in the garden and said revellers often ran around naked or had sex in public after heavy drinking. Spinola Gardens, in its current form, was inaugurated in 2007. That project cost Lm300,000, equivalent to €698,812. At the time, Times of Malta described it as “marking another stage in the facelift of what has become an upmarket area over the years”.
