TIRANA, Aug. 1 – A new recreational park for all ages will be added to Tirana’s Great Lake area. The Municipality of Tirana, with the financial support of TIKA and the Agency for Parks and
Recreation, started work on a new recreational space including both a playground for children and a resting environment for adults.
Mayor of Tirana Erion Veliaj stressed that an environment where children are treated with respect and love from the very beginning makes them better citizens tomorrow.
“One of the reasons why we have these small disagreements today is because we have people who were raised badly, who are not used to team work, were not raised to think positively, were not raised to look at the good side but to find space to divide people, to put them against each other, to say no to progress, to be afraid of new things. That is why we have these debate today,” Veliaj said.
Referring to the widely-debated National Theatre bill, which Veliaj and the municipality support,
he said the parliament will approve the bill again in September. Veliaj listed many of the capita investments that were encountered with resistance at first, but then gave good results.
“We will patiently wait during these 40 days for the parliament to gather again and pass the new National Theatre bill. But there’s always the question I ask myself: those who oppose everything, weren’t they the same people saying ‘don’t touch the lake,’ ‘don’t touch the park’? The park is more frequented today and it’s enough to see how the games corner has gone into order, as well as the bicycle track, the pedestrian track, the runway and the new Amphitheater,” Veliaj added.
According to him, Tirana will continue to change and despite slight delays for a matter of a few days public work will not be halted.
Veliaj guaranteed the capital will make up for all the lost time and promised the municipality will work to remain in the right direction, but did not address the unconstitutionality of the NT bill, as vetoed by Albania’s President Ilir Meta this week.
“By the end of the year we will return here and find another games corner transformed and we’ll say: ‘it’s so good that we didn’t lose time.’ We are really losing 40 days but we will make for the lost time. For a city that has lost many years, each day is valuable and for this we are sorry, but we will make up for it with courage,” he concluded.
Concerning the new corner, the mayor said it will be the second biggest park in the capital, after the one constructed nearby the new amphitheater area.
Citizens living in the area around the Zoo, Botanic Garden and Dry Lake will have the opportunity to use this area. The new recreational park is being built at one the lake’s unused areas, in a surface of 5500 square meters.
