In May 2023, local divers, communicated to the Malta Tourism Authority and Transport Malta regarding parking at the Ċirkewwa Marine Park. Communication is represented below.
As of August 2023, this suggestion has not yet been taken up, even though we know several reminders have been sent. Rather, the problem increased due to enforcement action being threatened by LESA regarding the vehicles parked irregularly due to lack of space.
Roughly a month ago now, during the Divers for Puttinu Fundraising Event held on Good Friday, we could not help but notice that a good part of the success of the event was due to the logistical arrangements done with Transport Malta to reserve a section of parking for diving trucks and divers’ cars at the Cirkewwa Marine Park along the wall bordering the Ferry Terminal Area.
The event traffic management worked like a dream, even though it was a super busy day at Cirkewwa – with all available spots taken even though we used fishbone parking on the Ferry wall side, which normally is occupied by terminal related parking.
Seeing that from the information we have, this year the diving tourism industry may have a very good summer, we would like to initiate a discussion to have a section of the wall bordering the Ferry Terminal Parking to be reserved for diving trucks and divers’ vehicles.
We fully understand that the Ferry area is a busy zone with different interests and there are also safety concerns to be considered.
Hence, we would like to propose the following:
Area: Half of the length of the ferry wall area (marked with red in attached plan) to be turned into parking reserved for diver’s vehicles (schools and individuals), with similar restrictions as the existing reserved areas. Parking to be carried out in a fishbone manner to allow better use of the length of wall.
Limitation: May to October, except on Tuesdays (due to dangerous good ferry service) between 08:00 and 13:00.
Infrastructural changes: Signs affixed to the wall, and if possible, removal in this section of the unnecessarily high concrete lane separator and replacing with paint instead. Fishbone parking bays to be indicated using minimal markings in yellow.
We trust that such an arrangement would benefit all concerned parties due to better organisation of the area on busy days.
In summer, except for the occasional bad weather day, the current parking zone is too small for the increasingly successful site which is being turned into Malta’s first managed Marine Park, with the funding from the Malta Tourism Authority and in line with the Diving Strategy announced last year.
We trust that this proposed measure would improve the experience of divers on site, and make it safer due to the elimination of spillover haphazard parking. On the other hand, in the afternoon, the site would be returned to non-divers for parking (e.g. Gozitan workers) or if using the site for other recreational purposes.
Email to MTA, TM and Mellieha Local Council
