Good news for Sliema: the government owns the open sea, and is handing it over for a private lido
The site is designated public open space, but the government, as owner of the sea, has graciously consented to a private pool, sun deck and two restaurants taking it off the public's hands.
Malta keeps running short of coast to build on, which sounds like a problem right up until you remember that the sea is simply land that has not been reclaimed yet. On the Sliema seafront, opposite Manoel Island, the next attraction is already filed and waiting: an exclusive private lido, with an outdoor swimming pool, a sun deck, two buildings of ancillary facilities, restaurants and a children’s play area, every bit of it standing proudly on a fresh patch of ground that does not, for the moment, exist.
It will soon. The plan (PA/03174/26) is to reclaim the open water, pour in new land, and crown the result with a swimming pool. We understand that filling in the sea to create somewhere to put a smaller, tidier body of water may strike the unimaginative as faintly circular. We prefer to call it Malta’s answer to the Palm: bespoke real estate, conjured from seawater, for the discerning guest who finds the actual Mediterranean a little too public, a little too free, and frankly a little too wet around the edges.
The view, at last behind a barrier
For generations the promenade has handed out its sea view to absolutely anyone who wandered past, at no charge whatsoever, in what any economist will tell you is a tragic waste of a perfectly monetisable horizon. The new lido fixes this oversight. From the public pavement you will enjoy an uninterrupted vista of the back of a premium pool deck, while the water itself retires, sensibly, behind the entrance gate where it can be appreciated by those who have paid to appreciate it.
So good they are reclaiming it twice
Encouragingly, there is already a lido next door standing on land previously reclaimed from the same sea, living proof that the concept works and that open water can, in fact, be improved upon. The strip of blue between the two was only ever sitting there being blue. Soon it will be doing something with its life.
A gentle word for the killjoys
A small number of joyless people will point out that the site is designated public open space, that the seabed hosts protected marine habitats that reclamation destroys outright, and that the public has until 19 June to object at representations@pa.org.mt. To them we offer the only answer that matters: the government, as the legal owner of the sea, has already consented to the application. The grown-ups have signed off. The sea, after all, was just lying around.
Plan ahead. The pool opens the moment the sea closes.
