Manoel Island - Crisis File | Malta Housing Watch

Summary

Manoel Island is a 30-hectare island in Marsamxett Harbour, connected to Gżira by a stone bridge. For 300 years it was Malta’s quarantine island, guarded by Fort Manoel. In 2000 both major parties voted unanimously to hand it to the MIDI consortium for 99 years. Twenty-six years, one 29,000-signature petition and one €43 million settlement later, it is public again. Whether it stays public is the live question.

Timeline

1570
The Bishop’s Island. The Cathedral Chapter of Mdina acquires the island, which becomes known as Il-Gżira tal-Isqof. Its story as state land, church land and concession land starts here.
1592-93
First quarantine. A temporary lazaretto of wooden huts is erected during the plague outbreak, and dismantled once the pestilence subsides.
1643
Lascaris builds the Lazzaretto. The Order of St John acquires the island from the Church in exchange for land known as tal-Fidden near Rabat. Grand Master Giovanni Paolo Lascaris builds a permanent Lazzaretto, enlarged by successive Grand Masters - Cotoner, Carafa, Perellos, de Vilhena, Rohan - into Malta’s primary quarantine station for over 250 years.
1723-1733
Fort Manoel rises. Grand Master António Manoel de Vilhena, who renames the island after himself, lays the first stone on 14 September 1723. The design is by French engineer René Jacob de Tigné, executed under the Order’s military engineer Charles François de Mondion: a square plan, four corner bastions, ravelin, covert way and glacis, with a chapel dedicated to St Anthony of Padua. The enceinte is complete by 1727, the chapel and barracks around 1733. Mondion dies in 1733 and is buried in the crypt beneath the chapel.
1813-1838
The British quarantine machine. The Lazzaretto serves as plague hospital in 1813-14 and as a military hospital during the Crimean War. It is enlarged in 1837-38 under Governor Sir Henry Frederick Bouverie, with a new plague hospital built during the same works. Letters are fumigated at the Lazaretto before delivery.
1941-1942
War and a submarine depot. The Admiralty requisitions the Lazzaretto in 1939. Between 1941 and 1942 the island serves as a submarine depot and is bombed repeatedly by Italian and German aircraft. Fort Manoel’s ramparts, barracks and chapel are damaged; the chapel takes a direct hit. Explosions burst open graves; soldiers reburied the remains.
1949-1979
Hospital, then thirty years of abandonment. The Lazzaretto reopens as a hospital in 1949 and operates until the Royal Navy sails away on 31 March 1979. Then the island falls derelict: the fort, decommissioned in 1964, is squatted and vandalised, and Mondion’s crypt is pillaged. In the early 1970s the old quarantine-cemetery ground had been converted into a yard leased for storing oil-rig drill pipes - the origin of the yacht yard on the south shore.
1993
MIDI is chosen. MIDI, a consortium set up in 1992 and converted into a plc in June 1999, is selected as preferred bidder to develop Manoel Island and Tigné Point. NGOs including Din l-Art Ħelwa, Friends of the Earth and Nature Trust object that the deal “smacked of speculation”. PN environment minister Francis Zammit Dimech, who led the negotiations, calls the project a “national dream”.
15 June 2000
The 99-year emphyteusis. The public deed is signed: a 99-year temporary emphyteusis over Manoel Island and Tigné Point, granted by the PN government and approved by a parliamentary resolution passed unanimously - the only objection raised was a clause exempting MIDI from stamp duty, which is why the deal needed a plenary vote under the Disposal of Government Land Act (Cap 268, art. 3(1)(d)). The premium is Lm39.5 million (about €92.2 million) for both sites, of which Manoel Island accounts for Lm21.32 million (about €49.7 million); ground rent is Lm480,000 a year for both sites, Manoel Island alone Lm256,811 - waived or discounted for the first thirteen years. The grant includes marina rights on the south shore. MIDI chair Albert Mizzi promises completion in “seven to 10 years”.
2000-2016
Locked out. The foreshore is sealed from the start of the concession - for about sixteen years - despite the concession terms requiring public access to remain open. On the ground, MIDI restores Fort Manoel from around 2001 (the company puts the fort’s restoration at €13.9 million, some ten times the works-credit the deed allocated) and builds an Enemalta distribution centre. The luxury development never materialises; the full development permit is never issued. Tigné Point, the other half of the deal, is fully developed.
5 September 2016
“The coastline is not yours.” Gżira residents protest against MIDI’s blocking of coastal access, with the council arguing the closure breached the law enshrining the foreshore as public domain. Flimkien għal Ambjent Aħjar had filed Public Domain Act applications the previous June seeking seven sites, including Manoel Island, declared public domain.
10 September 2016
The locks are cut. Activists from Kamp Emerġenza Ambjent, supported by several eNGOs and joined by Gżira mayor Conrad Borg Manché, cut MIDI’s locks and force through the gates to the foreshore, camping on site and inviting the public to join. Access is closed again by security officers on 14 September and reopened by activists around 24 September.
2017
Weekends only, under surveillance. After the re-occupation and weeks of protests, MIDI agrees an interim arrangement: limited access, 8am to 8pm, weekends only, under surveillance - even though the outline permit required the foreshore to stay accessible throughout construction and operation, and the concession gave MIDI only a third of the island with the foreshore excluded.
2018
The council sues, and the Foundation is born. The Gżira local council initiates legal proceedings against MIDI for barring public access to the foreshore. On 14 March 2018, MIDI and the council sign a Guardianship Deed establishing the Manoel Island Foundation - chaired by Borg Manché, with lawyer Claire Bonello, deputy mayor Ralph Mangion and MIDI CEO Mark Portelli - binding MIDI to public access for the park, foreshore, swimming zones and Fort Manoel, building-height limits and an 80,000 sqm public park. The proposed casino is dropped. Prime Minister Joseph Muscat attends the signing and calls it a model of community-investor relations. A PN row follows, with the party claiming its Gżira councillors were kept out of the negotiations.
March 2019
First outline approval, 13-1. The Planning Authority board approves the Manoel Island redevelopment outline by thirteen votes to one.
16 September 2021
The permit is redone, 7-0, after everyone steps aside. The 2019 approval had been revoked by the Environment and Planning Review Tribunal after FAA’s appeal exposed an EIA consultant’s conflict of interest. On the revised application (PA/09407/17), four board members - PA chairman Vincent Cassar, ERA chairman Victor Axiaq, NGO representative Annick Bonello and member Joseph Brincat - and the Gżira local council itself recuse, the council because it sits on the Manoel Island Foundation. The remaining board approves unanimously: 300 apartments (down from 499), 175,000 sqm of public open space including the 80,000 sqm Glacis Park, a new-build footprint of roughly 6-10% of the site, no land reclamation. A separate 2012 permit allowing a casino, offices and residences in the Lazzaretto - renewed in 2023 as PA 4716/23 - stands alongside it; a previous PN government had waived the casino concession fee in exchange for the Fort Manoel restoration.
December 2021
The hidden partner. MIDI signs a covert agreement with Anton Camilleri, known as “Toni tal-Franciz” (AC Enterprises), for a joint venture in which Camilleri would hold the majority and operational control of the Manoel Island development, with MIDI contributing the concessioned land for a minority stake. The arrangement is revealed by The Shift on 8 June 2025.
31 March 2023
The deadline passes. The deed required substantial completion by this date, with a three-year cure period to 31 March 2026, after which government could rescind. MIDI claims automatic extensions totalling at least ten years for delays beyond its control - permitting, archaeological finds, appeals - and says works could finish by 2033. Its 2023 full development application presents 323 residential units and 186,000 sqm of open space, developer figures that were never put to a final decision.
March-May 2025
The petition. Parliamentary petition no. 257, opened by Robert Louis Fenech for the “Manoel Island: Post Għalina” campaign led by Moviment Graffitti and Flimkien għal Ambjent Aħjar and endorsed by around fifty organisations, runs its two months and closes on 25 May 2025 with 29,041 signatures - roughly 5% of Malta’s population and the most successful parliamentary petition of the legislature. In early May, Prime Minister Robert Abela pushes back, warning that compensation would cost “hundreds of millions”; PN MP Rebekah Borg demands transparency on the contract finances.
8-10 June 2025
The concession cracks. On 8 June, The Shift reveals the hidden Camilleri joint venture, and MIDI says it is “open to reaching an agreement”. On 9 June, MIDI publicly commits to discussing returning the island to public ownership. On 10 June, the government files a judicial protest against MIDI claiming failure to meet its contractual obligations and refusing any extension of the completion deadline. Within the month, the government withdraws its support for the project and declares its intention to turn the island into a national park; Abela meets the campaigners and tells them “their fight is my fight”.
Late 2025
Fort Tigné for sale. It emerges that MIDI had entered a €2.5 million promise-of-sale agreement with developer Joseph Portelli to convert Fort Tigné into a hotel - a sale requiring government approval, and one more pressure point for the fort’s return.
16 March 2026
“Returned to the people.” Abela announces that the MIDI board has agreed to terminate the 99-year emphyteutical grant over Manoel Island and return Fort Tigné. Lands Minister Owen Bonnici, who negotiated alongside the Prime Minister, puts the payment at €43 million net - €47.3 million gross including reimbursable VAT - against the €78 million MIDI had claimed: no payment for the land itself, just over half the verified spend. MIDI confirms to the stock exchange that the Tigné Point concession excluding Fort Tigné remains in force.
24 March 2026
Parliament votes again, unanimously. The resolution approving the rescission - tabled by Owen Bonnici - passes unanimously, after unanimous endorsement from the National Audit Office scrutiny of the Public Accounts Committee. Both parties that had voted the concession in in 2000 vote it out in 2026.
March 2026
The shareholders in the room. MIDI’s big owners were business families - Alf. Mizzi & Sons (17.37%), MAPFRE MSV Life (12.55%), Gasan Enterprises (11.09%), Mark Weingard (8.91%) as of April 2024 - not politicians. But one member of the government had money in the company himself: Economy Minister Silvio Schembri, an MP since 2017, declared shares and bonds in MIDI plc in his published asset declarations from 2017 through 2022, the last year his form was public. No public record exists of any conflict declaration or recusal from him during the settlement votes. And in the same month as those votes, the government formally abolished the more detailed ministerial asset declarations that had shown such holdings, replacing them with a single, less comprehensive form that is not published. Whether any member who voted on the €43 million rescission held MIDI shares or bonds is no longer publicly knowable.
28 April 2026
Shareholders sign under the clock. MIDI’s extraordinary general meeting endorses the rescission. The board calls the reimbursement inadequate but accepts it given “the significant disparity in negotiating power”: €50 million in secured bonds fall due on 27 July 2026, and no court case could possibly conclude in time. “The decision not to litigate was made on practical and financial grounds alone.”
13 May 2026
The island comes home. The public deed is signed before Notary Marco Burlo by Lands Authority CEO Robert Vella, Transport Malta CEO Kurt Farrugia and MIDI CEO Mark Portelli, with Abela and Bonnici presiding. Heritage Malta takes over Manoel Island and Fort Tigné, and the sites open to the public the same day - schoolchildren are the first visitors. Abela pledges to amend the Local Plan so that no development can ever take place on the island again, to be followed by a masterplan process.
Early May 2026
Building on top of Rome. Times of Malta reports that the illegal courts stand directly over archaeological remains documented during MIDI’s earlier excavation works: alignments of vine trenches from the classical period, Roman or possibly Punic in origin, visible even in Google Earth satellite imagery as dotted lines running under the courts. University of Malta archaeologist Timmy Gambin calls them the largest set of vine trenches ever discovered in Malta, alongside a possible ancient quarry and Second World War slit trenches, and urges they be restored and integrated into the national park “as a kind of living history” - returned to their original use, planted with trees. The Superintendence of Cultural Heritage confirms the remains exist. It raises no objection.
16 July 2026
The padel courts. The Planning Authority board sanctions twenty illegally built padel courts and approves ten more on the former Nicholl Ground football pitch (PA/07995/25, filed in November 2025 by Sharlon Pace for Gżira United FC), by eleven votes to one, with a €25,000 planning-gain fine after the case officer had recommended the standard-formula €900 - having judged the courts “lightweight and reversible” on a site that historically hosted sport. The recommendation was published two days after the objection period closed with 186 formal objections, and the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage, guardian of the Roman-era trenches underneath, offered no substantive obstacle - stipulating only archaeological monitoring. Illegal works had already been halted by enforcement in March 2026. FAA and Moviment Graffitti argue the application was invalid, that the site sits in Valletta’s UNESCO buffer zone and required a heritage impact assessment, and that the permit pre-commits public land the public had just paid €43 million to recover. Borg Manché, now a PN MP, argues Gżira United has no legal title: its 1976 rights were extinguished by the 2000 concession, which granted MIDI vacant possession.
17-28 July 2026
“Unravelling.” The PN accuses Abela of breaking the national park pledge by allocating public land to private padel after taxpayers bought it back, noting no legal definition or protection for “national park” exists. On 24-25 July, Post Għalina, Moviment Graffitti, FAA and Din l-Art Ħelwa protest on the island - activists describe themselves as “betrayed”. On 27-28 July, the OPM rules out the Lazzaretto casino for good, scrapping the approved permit since MIDI no longer holds title, and the NGOs announce an appeal against the padel permit.
August 2026
The park exists on paper only. The promised local plan amendment has not been enacted; no gazetted amendment or planning process for it is in the public record. The Shape Your Space consultation on the three planned national parks closed on 30 April 2026 with around 12,000 contributions, presented on 7 May; campaigners submitted their own national-park vision. No management model is in force, and the padel appeal is pending.

What Manoel Island is

Manoel Island sits between Lazzaretto Creek and Sliema Creek in Marsamxett Harbour, fully visible from Valletta’s bastions and connected to Gżira by a stone bridge - the present bridge built around 1935 on the line of a pre-1800 structure and widened in 1975. The island is approximately 30 hectares: low, flat, leaf-shaped.

Fort Manoel is a Grade 1 national monument; the Lazzaretto is Grade 2. Both were wartime casualties - the island’s stint as a submarine depot in 1941-42 cost the fort its chapel (two-thirds destroyed) and scarred the Lazzaretto. MIDI’s restoration returned the fort’s silhouette, but the company’s own figures - €13.9 million on the fort, over €20 million with the chapel - were roughly ten times the works-credit the deed allowed, a discrepancy the company itself used to justify its €78 million compensation claim.

The island’s ecological value is modest beside Comino’s, but its heritage value and its position - inside the harbour’s visual envelope, facing the capital - make any development there a matter of national significance. Both the fort and the Lazzaretto are now under Heritage Malta.

The concession was never a sale

The 2000 deal was a temporary emphyteusis: a 99-year lease-like grant, revocable on breach, approved by a unanimous House resolution under the law then in force - the Disposal of Government Land Act, Cap. 268, article 3(1)(d). What MIDI acquired was development rights conditioned on performance: build substantially by 31 March 2023, keep the foreshore public, restore the monuments. When performance failed, the same public law that granted the island could take it back - and eventually did.

That is the lesson the island’s story carries for every other concession on public land. Title is not permission, and a concession is not property. The 2026 termination took twenty-six years, a petition signed by five percent of the country, a judicial protest, a hidden-partner scandal and a €43 million payment - but it happened.

What remains unknown

Whether the settlement deed’s verified-spend breakdown - behind the €43 million net (€47.3 million gross) - is ever published, and the reimbursement caps if any.
MIDI’s continuing obligations at Tigné Point, which remains concessioned, and the fate of the €2.5 million Fort Tigné promise-of-sale to Joseph Portelli.
The legal form of the “national park”: no definition exists in Maltese law, the local plan amendment is not enacted, and no management model is published.
Whether any MP who voted on the rescission held a financial interest in MIDI plc: ministerial declarations published through 2022 showed Economy Minister Silvio Schembri holding MIDI shares and bonds, but the declaration regime was scrapped the same month as the vote.
The fate of the Roman-era vine trenches sealed beneath the padel courts: the Superintendence confined itself to a monitoring condition, the permit contains no restoration obligation, and the appeal outcome is pending.
The padel appeal outcome, and whether Gżira United’s claim of MIDI’s agreement to the use is ever tested against the extinguished 1976 rights.

Impact Articles

How the island came back

Governance - Public land

Civil society did what two parliaments would not. Kamp Emerġenza Ambjent and mayor Conrad Borg Manché cut the locks in 2016. The Gżira council sued. FAA’s appeal killed the first permit on a conflict of interest and forced four recusals on the second. Graffitti and FAA built a fifty-organisation coalition and a 29,041-signature petition. The Shift’s revelation of the Camilleri joint venture removed whatever legitimacy the project had left. And MIDI’s own missed deadline - substantial completion due 31 March 2023 - gave the government its lawful exit. The settlement split the difference: €43 million against €78 million claimed, with MIDI’s shareholders accepting under bond-redemption pressure rather than testing the state’s case in court.

Sources: Times of Malta contract fact-check and settlement coverage; The Shift; MaltaToday; The Malta Independent; TVMnews; Newsbook; MIDI plc circulars via whoswho.mt.

The promise that must now be kept

Public land - Accountability

Every actor in this story has now held the island: the Church, the Order, the Admiralty, the state, a consortium, and - since 13 May 2026 - Heritage Malta. The pattern that recurs is quiet reallocation. The foreshore was sealed for sixteen years against the concession’s own terms. The casino permit survived three changes of masterplan until public pressure killed it in 2018, then lingered on paper until 2026. Twenty illegal padel courts went up on public land bought back weeks earlier, directly on top of documented Roman-era vine trenches, and the Planning Authority sanctioned them for €25,000 - after its own officer recommended €900. The local plan amendment that would make the park irreversible has not been enacted. Until it is, Manoel Island’s status rests on the government of the day keeping its word.

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