A study into how Manama's 'parking crisis' can be overcome has been launched by Bahrain’s Capital Trustees Board.

At their weekly meeting yesterday (June 3), members put forward a number of suggestions on how more parking spaces can be provided in the capital, said a report in the Gulf Daily News (GDN), our sister publication.

These ranged from making more municipal land available for parking to the temporary seizure of unused private land.

Board chairman Mohammed Al Khozaee told the GDN that drastic measures had to be taken.

“Everyone knows this is a crisis we're facing, and there has to be a number of solutions in order to fix it - but this is one of the things that has been proposed,” he said.

“We want to have landowners make the land available, even for negligible sums.”

Al Khozaee said that rather than a temporary seizure of private land, the Capital Trustees could effectively 'rent' it from its respective owners.

“It would be difficult to force people, of course, but we want to work hard to cajole the owners or come into some sort of agreement if enough land is available,” he said.

“It would have to be for a decent amount of time, because we would have to fix the land and pave it.

“But if the owner wants to rent it out themselves, then they would have to do all the paving work.

“A lot of land might have delayed projects on it as well, so we want to make use of it, if only for a limited time.”

Al Khozaee said that the recommendation would now be studied further so that a viable strategy could be formulated.

“We haven't agreed on a way forward yet, so we need to study this further and see how the agreements can be made,” he said.

“It could be that it isn't feasible.

“If the owner is going to rent the land out, for instance, there would have to be a commercial registration, because there would be profits involved.”

Site visits are also needed to establish what lands are owned by the Trustees and which private lands could potentially be used for parking, Al Khozaee said.

“A committee will immediately begin studying the issue,” he said.

“If everything passes smoothly, we want to start work immediately.

“The Works, Municipalities and Urban Planning Affairs Ministry is also co-ordinating with us on this issue.

“In my meeting with the minister, he promised that any land we sort out the issues for, he will take the necessary steps to make it useable for parking.” - TradeArabia News Service