A public meeting to discuss traffic management in Kappara yesterday failed to placate a number of the locality’s residents, currently demanding a stop to what they term the “unbearable and unacceptable” inconvenience caused to them by Chiswick House School (CHS) on Antonio Schembri Street.
The meeting took place under the auspices of the San Gwann local council – of which Kappara theoretically forms part – and a CHS representative outlined the school’s proposals for a traffic management plan to alleviate congestion in the area. But the meeting proved generally inconclusive, with residents sticking to their original claim that the school should never have been licensed to operate in their area to begin with.
Tensions in this neighbourhood have been on the boil ever since the early 1990s, when a small private kindergarten in Sliema was relocated to a house on Antonio Schembri Street. Since then, CHS has expanded into an educational establishment for more than 800 students, complete with an English language school operating in summer.
“When we bought property in this area we did so on the understanding that it was purely residential,” Louis Camilleri, of the Kappara residents’ voluntary group, told MaltaToday this week. “There isn’t even meant to be a pharmacy or a greengrocer... so how can the authorities explain the presence of such a large school?”
Among the list of neighbours’ grievances is the fact that coaches and mini-vans now choke Antonio Schembri Street and its environs, with the result that residents often find it impossible to get to and from their own homes. Teachers and staff likewise park their private vehicles in the street – as opposed to on the school’s grounds, which residents claim was the original agreement – and when parents come to pick up their children, access to the street in question becomes impossible.
Noise levels are also an issue, and Kappara residents have even asked the Prime Minister to look into the fact that CHS employs a system of “staggered recreation times”, resulting in a constant stream of noisy children all day long, from delivery to collection time.
Other problems cited by residents include littering, unruly behaviour, and pollution on account of the “unacceptable” traffic flow.
“Originally we were assured that the school would only operate between 9am and noon, during school terms only,” one resident said. “However it is now busy from well before 8am until after 5:30pm, all year round, with extra-curricular activities going on until late in the evening.”
More pointedly, the Kappara residents’ voluntary group also implies that some of the abovementioned expansions may have been carried out without the necessary permits.
“We have been asking to see these permits since November 2007,” Mr Camilleri said. “At first we were told we would be given them before Christmas. All these months later, we still haven’t been shown anything...”
These requests have now been forwarded to the Prime Minister, who is politically responsible for the Malta Environment and Planning Authority (MEPA).
But Chiswick House School’s principal, Ms Bernie Mizzi, has dismissed these claims out of hand. “Of course the school is covered by permits,” she told MaltaToday. “Do you think the President of the Republic and Education Minister would have inaugurated the premises, if this were not the case?”
Mizzi acknowledged that she was aware of the residents’ longstanding grievances, but pointed out that the school was also doing its bit to alleviate the problem.
“We were asked by the local council to draw up a traffic management plan for the neighbourhood, which we presented to the ADT at a meeting yesterday,” she said. “Strictly speaking this is not within our competence as a school. Traffic management is an area for the police, the ADT and the local council, not for educators. But we prepared the plan all the same, in the interest of finding an acceptable solution.”
This proposal has not, however, been welcomed by the residents’ association, and with a second meeting scheduled next week with Chris Said, parliamentary secretary for dialogue in the Office of the Prime Minister, it appears that the Kappara community plan to take their complaints all the way to Castille.