The University Of Malta Sports Ground Has Temporarily Closed To Become A Car Park
It’s the transport Olympics and warming up on the field this morning you’ll find the foreign teams Citroen, Toyota and Peugeot. These car-athletes made it to the pitch early this morning, but they’re not there to train – that’s something that the human-athletes do.
“Three years ago I started a project to build sports teams to be in place for when the regeneration of the sports complex was completed at the university. The university football pitch is now a carpark,” Antoine Attard wrote in a Facebook post.
New projects have started at the university, which includes the construction of the new University Residence, Engineering Labs, the Maths & Physics Extension and the new Sports Complex. A couple of the projects will also include substantial underground parking spaces to make up for lost parking ground, that will be available upon completion of the project.
“Considering there was such a sudden closure of the car park, students were frustrated and we needed to come up with a solution”
While all this building was going on (during the exam period – but that’s an issue for a different day), the lower part of one of the main car parks was closed off for construction. So the University needed to come up with a plan to allocate more parking spaces. After not warning students or KSU about the plans to block parking spaces, they needed to come up with a quick solution.
And using the only unused space available seemed to be the best option.
During a conference regarding the University Construction Projects, KSU also emphasised that they are working to make alternative and more sustainable methods to travelling to university more available.
“There was no contingency plan from the University’s end, though they did suggest this solution which we accepted” KSU President Carla Galea told Lovin Malta. “This solution is very temporary since it will only last this semester.”
The Sports Ground will then undergo its own renovation and extension next year. The KSU President hopes that by this time there will be a mentality shift and students, university staff, and admin staff will know to use alternative modes of transport when travelling to university.
There’s a petition that’s going around to address the decision of turning the track into a car park. It’s goal is to get 1,000 signatures and it’s close to reaching it. You can add your name to the petition here.