Gozo National Swimming Pool

When back in December 2007 we objecting to Planning Application 01894/07 by which the Otters WaterPolo Club intended to excavate the foreshore for a seawater pool and to construct other sports facilities extending existing site by another 30metres, effectively transferring a public foreshore into a private complex, we proposed the following:

"Such aquatic sports facilities should form part of the existing Sports Complex in Victoria"

I reiterate what I said then, that all Gozitans would benefit from a national indoor heated swimming pool and the government should tap EU funds to provide central aquatic sports facility. Alternattiva Demokratika has a long successful history in keeping beaches freely available to the public. We intend to protect this coastal area left in Marsalforn to defend public rights of access, as well as to secure proper aquatic sports facilities elsewhere.

Was a national swimming pool in Gozo not part of the Nationalist Party's manifesto in 1991? We are still waiting 17 years later.

Two national swimming pools already exist in Malta; hence we believe that Gozitans deserve, by right, a national pool in Gozo. In its electoral manifesto for Gozo, Alternattiva Demokratika proposed that a national pool and aquatic sports facility would form part of the existing sports complex in Victoria where adjacent land is available or in other locations such as the abandoned Hondoq ir-Rummien distillation plant which could be rehabilitated and transformed into an indoor solar power heated pool for all citizens.

On the 21st May 2008 - at the new parliament sitting - Gozitan Labour MP Justyne Caruana asked the Gozo Minister what happened to the promised public pool for Gozo.

And the answer was:
"Il-Ministeru qieghed jahdem fuq il-pjanijiet biex il-proposta li ssir pixxina gewwa Ghawdex titwettaq kif imwieghed."

Meaning that 'The Ministry is working on the plans so that the proposal for a pool in Gozo will materialize as promised.'

and on it goes...