Road to the Lines
Every morning I sit in our office canteen and look up at the Moorish Castle and the works taking place on Gibraltar’s Northern Defences. It’s very exciting to see the old jungle cleared of undergrowth, revealing historic walls and fortifications as a new walking route up to The Tower of Homage is carved out. However, the infamous Road to the Lines then comes into view and my heart sinks. Anyone wishing to visit our new tourist attraction will need to pass through this notorious street, so why has it been left to rot despite years of announcements and promises?
Cast your minds way back to 2019 when the Government put forward an ambitious regeneration project and invited expressions of interest. These much-anticipated plans for Road to the Lines would provide 100 studio apartments and some ground floor units for commercial use. Regeneration of this site needed to be seen in the wider context of the wholesale renewal of the Upper Town as a prime tourist zone in the future. It’s the future now and the area is still a slum.
The then Housing Minister Samantha Sacramento said it would be a “win-win for housing and a win-win for urban renewal” and she was absolutely right. The government were taking a hard line to any would-be developer statingclearly that the flats had to be low-cost rental. In fact, any submission which proposed to sell the finished product instead of renting it would be deemed to be “null and void”. Tough talk. What happened?
In September 2020 local pressure group Action for Housing issued a press release asking the government for an update. The program had not got off the ground and this historic urban area continued to be in a sorry state of neglect and decay. The government’s reply stated they had yet to come to an agreement with a potential developer. Since then, Action for Housing has continued to question the Road to the Lines issue every autumn. In November 2021 the government changed tack; they had not been able to find a developer so would now sell off the individual buildings. The tender process had been a great success in the past. There are few homes aroundRoad to the Lines which remain part of government housing stock as the policy has been to decant buildings thus making the ability to now sell far easier. Existing government tenants could stay where they were, and all thevacant units could be sold to the highest bidder. Great, bring it on!
A tender notice was issued in the local press for 20 Road to the Lines, a building which I visited during the 2021 viewing process. It was full of potential as a family home and many people put in bids and waited to be notified. Nothing happened. To-date nothing has been awarded and not one of the empty buildings has been put out to open tender. Records show that in 2020 Flat 2, Road to the Lines, was sold for £15,000.00 and a whole building at 17 Castle Ramp was sold for £275,000.00. In 2022 many people were offering to buy these dilapidated places so why didn’t the government take the money and offload the responsibility?
Regenerating Road to the Lines was a 2023 election manifesto pledge promising to deliver homes, alongside plans for artists’ studios within the former prison buildings at the Moorish Castle. Since then, we’ve seen a whole array of official proclamations from Housing Ministers to the Deputy Chief Minister, and in August 2024 Economic Development Minister, Sir Joe Bossano no less, took centre stage. Could he be the hero of the hour and finally make a dramatic breakthrough and sort out the mess? (Spoiler alert, no.) His sterling words were as follows; “…the regeneration project is still being assessed for viability, as none of the individuals who presented proposals have followed through…when the time came to hand money over, the potential investors pulled out because of low profit margins.” According to Government three developers pulled out, and a fourth bid was “too low to consider”.Surely, any minister with good economic sense would sell off expensive-to-fix, ramshackle old properties for whatever they can get and if the buyer snips up a bargain, so what? At least the building would be restored and lived in rather than becoming a hideous blot on the landscape.
Oddly then, in May 2025 the government announced a new application at the DPC (Development and Planning Commission): Revised plans for Road to the Lines but this time incorporating “pitched roofs, pastel colours and traditional features that aligned better with the Old Town's design”. Pinch me, but wasn’t that all decided back in 2019 when the public were told that “three departments worked closely together in order to achieve the desired result”?
2025 also brought ‘The Goods Lift Controversy’ where a metal structure was clamped onto the historic old wall parallel to Road to the Lines by a subcontractor without the necessary authorisation or heritage licence. The Government defended their decision stating that the area was undergoing a major restoration project that will provide 100 affordable homes and this lift was needed to move materials in and out of a place inaccessible to vehicles. Fast forward to today and the lift is still attached, there are buckets full of abandoned rubble stacked along the pavements, and not one of the promised 100 flats has materialised. This begs the question, if the Government was paying builders to move debris up an unauthorised lift structure where is the result of their labours? What actual works have the government carried out to-date?
A few weeks ago, I took a walk in the area and it’s in a very sorry state. No. 20, which was supposed to be tendered out in 2021, is blocked up by metal sheeting with the façade crumbling away. The only difference is a beautifulblock on the Castle Ramp junction which has been restored to a very high standard. This is a fine example as to how Road to the Lines could look and how, despite difficult access issues, people can refurbish old buildings and bring them back to life.
The Gibraltar Heritage Trust has repeatedly stressed that the only way to efficiently renovate Road to the Lines is by using a model which has been successful in the past such as Calpe Barracks and 14 Flat Bastion Road. In both these projects, the Government acted as the developer and put the units out for sale to first time homeowners. Why doesn’t government heed this sensible advice?
The usual and frankly now tedious retort from officials when anything wise is suggested is “there’s no money” but if we are to believe the constant boasts about being the “5th largest economy in the world” (or whatever) then surely, we can afford to restore what could be one of the most picturesque streets in Gibraltar.
