Manoel Island's promised national park loves padel so much its first 20 courts went up before the permit
The future national park unveils its first attraction: a floodlit thirty-court padel complex delivered so enthusiastically that two thirds of it arrived before the permission.
Pack a racquet. Manoel Island, the harbour island recently promised to the nation as a public park, is wasting no time on its first visitor attraction: thirty glass-walled padel courts on the old football ground, twenty of which have been considerately built in advance.
Why wait for a permit?
Most attractions make you queue. This one queues for you. While the planning application (for the “reinstatement of a sports ground with variable sports uses and demountable glass structures”, which is one way of describing thirty padel courts) made its way through the system, the courts simply went ahead and existed. Twenty of them now stand finished, fenced and ready, proposed for sanctioning at a one-off fee of €900.
That works out at €45 per court, rather less than a decent racquet, and comfortably the best all-inclusive offer on any Mediterranean island this season.
Heritage, underfoot
A further ten courts are planned over ground where archaeological remains from the classical period are documented, among the oldest evidence of human activity in the area. Great museums lay glass over their ruins so visitors can gaze down at the past. Here the glass stands upright, six metres of it, and you can volley over it. Every smash, a small dialogue with antiquity.
The Grand Master would be beside himself
The island has pedigree to spare. It carries the name of Grand Master António Manoel de Vilhena, who from 1723 raised a magnificent Baroque star fort at its tip; the fort’s architect, Charles François de Mondion, was so devoted to the project that on his death in 1733 he was buried in the crypt of the fort’s own chapel, where he lies to this day. We like to think both men would be beside themselves to learn that three centuries after they fortified this island to guard the harbour, it is defended at last by something genuinely worth the trouble: thirty glass courts of competitive padel, twenty of them in position before the paperwork. Mondion, for his part, has secured the finest seat in the house, and need never leave it.
Efficiency you can set your watch by
The public filed 186 objections. The case officer’s report recommending approval appeared two days after the objection window closed, a turnaround the rest of the public service can only study with admiration. The recommendation: grant the permit, conditions attached, fine collected.
A pause for suspense
Then, on decision day, the applicant’s architect was unable to attend, so the board postponed the whole matter to a date to be announced, comfortably after the general election. Objectors note that hearings are never postponed when their own architects cannot make it, which only confirms how specially this project is regarded. One nearby resident illustrated the difference beautifully: arriving three minutes late to the hearing for his own modest application, he and his architect were turned away and told the lateness was their own fault. Here, by contrast, an absent architect summons a postponement, the surest mark of a guest the establishment is genuinely delighted to keep waiting for. The courts, fully built, wait patiently for the formality of being allowed to exist.
No visual impact, beautifully lit
Officially the complex sits lightly on the landscape. To prove it, the floodlights come on after dark and the whole arrangement glows across the harbour like a Dan Flavin retrospective: nothing to see here, visible from Valletta.
Nearly thirty thousand residents signed a petition asking for the island to become a park for the people. The people are duly getting one, pre-equipped: thirty courts, demountable glass, lighting included. The park itself is expected to follow, subject to the availability of the architect.
