For the record, just for the record, there is a difference between selling off the MANAGEMENT of car parks and selling off the OWNERSHIP of car parks. Yep. Before we rush off to create petitions and cry about the sale of public land to private entrepreneurs let us just make sure we got this one right.
The SALE of public land to a car park company would entail the actual transfer of ownership on land rights. As far as I know no such deals ever happen and the government retains ultimate ownership of public land. Land that the government itself owns in trust for the people. See MCP. See agreement to extend lease in order to allow for further investment in MCP (conditional on public garden).
The transfer of MANAGEMENT entails the simple reasoning that while government (and therefore you) remains the ultimate owner of the land, such land is managed as a car park by a private firm/individual who will (hopefully) also be obliged to make such improvements (considering advances in technology) as necessary to make the actual use of a car park worthwhile. This would probably (you never know with our politician’s brilliant ideas: see Arriva planning) entail the installation of machines for tickets, security cameras and the usual small print that waives the responsibility of car park management if you decided to leave your brand new laptop/ipad/camera in the car. At no point in the duration of a management agreement is the ownership of public land alienated to a third party.
Tant biex jaghraf jixrob l-Earl grey bilmod.
