Fact-check Malta: What Transport Malta’s boat mooring plans for Għadira actually say

Claim: Plans published in early August indicate that Għadira could become a marina.

Verdict: The plans, originally published in June, reorganise the bay’s mooring system, allocating specific mooring spots to registered boat owners. The bay now has 480 berthing spots. The works were carried out in June and have been completed. They do not involve any pontoons or permanent structures typical of a marina.

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A seemingly innocuous notice published by Transport Malta in early August made waves, sparking fears that Malta’s most popular bay could be turned into a marina.

The notice, published on August 5, showed new mooring areas and fairways at Għadira, Malta’s largest sandy beach, with an attached map showing mooring areas spreading across the bay’s eastern side to reach Imġiebaħ bay.

The notice promptly caught the attention of political party Momentum, as well as its leader Arnold Cassola, who warned that the area would be turned into the largest mooring area on the island, with potentially damaging impacts.

Others, including the Mellieħa mayor and other local councillors, said they were in the dark over what was happening, unable to allay residents’ fears that their local bay would be overrun by boats.

The matter also led to a petition, signed by over 3,000 people, calling on people to “stop the boat marina in Għadira Bay”.

Times of Malta navigated through the debate’s choppy waters to trace what the plans really mean for Għadira.

Are there really plans for a marina?

Let’s address the elephant in the room.

No, nothing in the notice presented last week suggests that there are any plans to develop a marina at Għadira.

The notice does not indicate any fixed structures, pontoons, breakwaters, or any other infrastructure typically associated with a marina.

Transport Malta officials who spoke to Times of Malta insist the prospect of a marina was never contemplated and is out of the question.

Instead, the notice deals with a general re-organisation of the way in which boats moor in the bay, setting out mooring zones, together with specific entry and exit points.

A similar, albeit far smaller, re-organisation had taken place in Xlendi and Mġarr ix-Xini two summers ago.

In practice, the revised setup means boat owners will now have to abide by new rules to moor their boats in the bay.

How did mooring in Għadira previously work?

In theory, anybody wishing to moor their boat at Għadira had to apply to Transport Malta for a permit to moor in the bay.

However, they were not assigned a specific mooring spot, effectively leaving them free to lay down their own buoy wherever they wished, as long as this was not within a designated swimming zone or some other protected area.

However, Transport Malta says, things quickly became messy.

The authority says it received several reports over the years of disputes between boat owners fighting over their preferred mooring spot.

Meanwhile, safety concerns over unregistered moorings and allegations that watersport operators frequently laid unauthorised moorings and charged boat owners for their use triggered a probe last summer.

Transport Malta says the plans which sparked outrage are an attempt to address these issues, as well as to handle the rapid rise in private boats.

Times of Malta spoke to several boat owners and operators who moor in the bay, all of whom agreed that the bay’s re-organisation was sorely needed, although several had a bone to pick over how the process was handled.

Did the works already take place?

Although the matter only caught national attention throughout August, the works actually date back to early June.

On June 6, a notice to mariners announced that ‘Mellieħa Bay re-organisation of moorings will commence on Monday 9th June 2025,’ with works expected to last for two weeks.

The notice instructed boat owners to remove their vessels from the bay over the weekend.

The two-day deadline angered several boat owners, many of whom questioned the wisdom of carrying out the works in early June, when boating season is in full flow, rather than in the winter months.

Transport Malta officials who spoke to Times of Malta conceded that the timing of the works was less than ideal.

In any case, a fortnight after the works kicked off, on June 23, another notice announced that “works on the organisation of moorings in Mellieħa Bay have been completed”.

That announcement was accompanied by an aerial map of the bay, marking the new mooring zones.

What are the new mooring zones?

The bay has now been split into seven different areas, each designated as mooring zones. These include four zones at the front of the bay, facing the beach, and a further three zones along the bay’s eastern side, along a two-kilometre stretch of land.

Transport Malta says each of these zones now has a fixed number of designated buoys, with every registered boater allocated a specific spot. Larger boats will be positioned further away from the swimming zone, with smaller vessels closer to swimmers.

Meanwhile, there are now fixed distances between the buoys, established according to the size of the boats and their turning circle, ostensibly to ensure safer navigation.

The new layout also established a new 20-metre buffer between the swimming zone and the start of the mooring areas and a series of fairways, 40 metres in width, through which boats must navigate as they make their way in and out of the bay. Boats will not be allowed to berth in either the buffer zone or the fairways.

In total, there are now some 480 mooring berths in the bay, Transport Malta says, across a mooring area spanning 615,000 square metres.

The authority claims this has been slightly reduced from the 623,000 square metre stretch where boats previously berthed, although the new layout also dedicates a further 290,000 square metres of sea estate to fairways.

The re-organisation also means that the new layout has been digitalised, with the bay’s fairways, mooring spots and entry points now marked on the online navigation system used by mariners across the world.

What about the August announcement?

Transport Malta’s latest announcement on the issue, on August 5, is virtually identical to the previous announcement in late June.

It presents the same map showing the layout of the new mooring zones, together with the same coordinates for each zone.

The only difference is that last week’s notice makes some slight changes to the launching lanes from the beach used by watersports operators, diverting most of the lanes directly into the fairways to facilitate easier navigation.

Transport Malta says the re-organisation has been completed and the new mooring system is already in place, with no more changes planned for the foreseeable future.

How does the new mooring system work?

According to Transport Malta, buoys are now allocated only to people who have registered their mooring spot in the bay, with each boat owner allocated a fixed spot.

In late April, shortly before the Għadira works kicked off, Transport Malta issued a notice in the government gazette warning that boat owners had a little over a fortnight to submit an application for temporary moorings before applications closed in early May. Days later, the authority took to its Facebook page to repeat the same notice.

In practice, this meant that anybody who did not register their mooring in Għadira by that deadline had their buoy removed during the re-organisation works, much to the dismay of some boat owners who were unaware of the notice and have now lost their mooring spot.

Who was consulted on the plans?

When the notice hit the headlines last week, several stakeholders, from the Mellieħa local council to sailing clubs and boat owners, said they were left adrift, with no knowledge of the plans or how they could be affected.

Transport Malta admits that consultation over the new mooring plans was limited to watersports operators within the bay and boat owners who registered their mooring spot at Għadira.

Boat owners who moored at the bay without having registered their spots were not consulted, nor were sailing clubs or other stakeholders.

Watersports operators and boat owners in the bay confirmed with Times of Malta that they had been consulted over the plans, although whether authorities took heed of their feedback.

“They consulted us but then did what they wanted anyway,” one operator grumbled.

Several boat owners and operators also say the re-organisation effectively handed boat owners who already had a pontoon in a marina somewhere else around Malta a second mooring spot at Għadira, because they registered their spot in time, displacing other boat owners who had to leave the bay.

Others say the re-organisation was “rushed” and “could have been done better,” with more time dedicated to outlining plans and finding solutions to accommodate owners of unregistered mooring berths.

Nevertheless, Transport Malta says that other bays are likely to face similar re-organisation in the coming years, as Malta’s shores try to keep up with the growing number of private boats.

Verdict

A notice to mariners published on August 5 marked the completion of works on a reorganisation of Għadira’s mooring setup.

The reorganisation works were first announced in early June and largely completed a fortnight later.

The works involved allocating fixed mooring spots to boat owners registered to moor in the bay. Several boats that were moored in the bay without being registered were removed.

The works also include the creation of fairways for boats to enter or exit the bay and reach their mooring spot. In total, there are now 615,000 square metres of sea estate reserved for mooring, together with a further 290,000 square metres for fairways.

The plans do not suggest the creation of a marina and the reorganisation did not involve the creation of any permanent structures typical of a marina, such as pontoons.

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