Caravans hog car park used by windsurfers
Windsurfers have become the latest victim of a perennial problem in Malta: the unregulated sprawl of caravans parked along the island’s coastline. Paul Ellul, who has been using a public car park in Għallis, on the Coast Road, to rig up for decades, says he and other members of the public can no longer access it. “The area has been overun by 20 or more caravans who are there night and day,” the windsurfing enthusiast told Times of Malta, in the hopes that authorities will intervene. His concern was echoed by Naxxar Mayor Anne Marie Muscat Fenech Adami who said the council was “very concerned” about the issue and had called on the environment and transport ministries to see to the problem. Ellul said that for the past decades, windsurfers have been using the area to launch on windy days. “Għallis is the only place we can access the waves in 30 knots of wind. This provides for a safe launching and exiting,” he said. “There is no other place to enjoy wave riding in Malta in a North Westerly wind.” Windsurfers usually make use of the car park, located close to the roundabout that leads to the Magħtab landfill, from where they set up – rigging their sails and changing into their...