Anyone who lives along the north-east coast of Malta knows White Rocks. It is the broad, rough stretch of limestone, scrub and abandoned buildings on the Pembroke side of the Coast Road, before the shoreline runs on towards Baħar iċ-Ċagħaq. For decades it was fenced, half forgotten and periodically the subject of development plans. On 31 July 2026 it became something else in law.
The Government Gazette of that day carried Legal Notice 209 of 2026, the Establishment of the White Rocks National Park Regulations, 2026. It is a short instrument, two pages including the map. That brevity matters, because a lot of what people expect from the words "national park" is not in it yet. Here is what the law actually does, what it leaves for later, and what residents and newcomers in the area can use today.
What L.N. 209 of 2026 says
The regulations were made by the Minister responsible for the environment under articles 54 and 55 of the Environment Protection Act, Chapter 549, after consultation with the Environment and Resources Authority (ERA). They have five regulations and a schedule.
Regulation 1 gives the title and states the purpose in one line: to establish White Rocks as a national park.
Regulation 2 defines three terms. "Park" means the White Rocks National Park as delineated in the Schedule. There is no written boundary description; the map is the boundary.
Regulation 3 is the operative provision: the Minister "hereby establishes" the park as shown on the site map.
Regulation 4 protects what was already there. The designation "shall not of itself prejudice" lawful existing agricultural activity, access rights, servitudes, permits or authorisations, as long as those rights are exercised subject to the regulations and any other applicable law.
Regulation 5 says the regulations are without prejudice to any stricter protection, prohibition, restriction, permit requirement, authorisation, enforcement power or conservation measure under the Act or any other law. In other words, the national park label does not loosen anything that already applies.
The schedule is a single site map titled "Boundary of the White Rocks National Park", which regulations 2 and 3 refer to.
As of 9 October 2026, the list of 2026 legal notices published on legislation.mt shows no amendment to L.N. 209.
What the regulations do not contain
Reading the notice next to Malta's two earlier park instruments shows how much is still to come.
No list of prohibited activities
L.N. 209 contains no permitted or prohibited uses. It does not mention vehicles, camping, fires, hunting, dogs, events or opening hours. Compare the Majjistral Nature and History Park Site Regulations (S.L. 549.83), which govern the coastal park around Golden Bay. Regulation 3 there sets hunting and trapping hours, and, unless a permit has been issued under the Park Manager's direction, bars driving or parking outside designated areas, camping outside designated areas, fires such as barbecues and bonfires outside designated areas, organised activities involving more than twenty people (other than walking and cycling on designated paths and the Park Manager's educational tours), removing sand or stones from the beach, and damaging the park.
None of that exists for White Rocks yet. Any rule about what you may or may not do on site will have to come from the general law, from separate regulations, or from an order under the Act.
No management body
The Majjistral park has a statutory management board and managing organisations appointed by written agreement for five-year terms (S.L. 549.48, regulations 6 to 10). The Park Nazzjonali tal-Inwadar in the south-east of Malta, established in 2016, has a seven-member management board with the duty to draw up a management plan and submit it to ERA for approval.
L.N. 209 names no manager, no board and no management plan. Project Green, the government agency that has led the public work on the site, is not mentioned in the legal notice.
No habitat status
When the Inwadar park regulations were amended in 2019, the park was also designated a special area of conservation of National Importance and declared part of the National Ecological Network under the Flora, Fauna and Natural Habitats Protection Regulations (S.L. 549.44). L.N. 209 makes no such designation for White Rocks. It establishes a park; it does not by itself create a Natura 2000 site or a special area of conservation.
That does not mean nothing protects the land. Regulation 5 keeps every existing protection in force, and the Act gives ERA its own tools, described further on.
The term "national park" in Maltese law
It is worth knowing that the Environment Protection Act does not define "national park". The Act defines a "protected area" as all areas afforded protection under the Act, and article 54(2)(m)(vi) allows the Minister to make regulations declaring areas on land or at sea to be protected areas, providing for their protection and regulating their management.
Each park is therefore whatever its own regulations make it. Majjistral, established by L.N. 251 of 2007, was declared a protected area with a park built around it. Inwadar was set up to "promote and conserve the ecological, geological, cultural and natural features whilst facilitating the sustainable use of the Park's resources for recreation". White Rocks, so far, is a park with a boundary and a guarantee for existing rights.
The government's own Parks in Malta platform currently lists Inwadar National Park in Marsascala, Salina National Park in St Paul's Bay, several areas of Ta' Qali National Park and Il-Majjistral Nature Park among its national parks.
How the regulations were made, and the one-month window
Article 55 of the Act sets the procedure. Regulations are made after consultation with ERA and, as a rule, only after a draft has been published for public consultation, giving anyone at least four weeks to make representations. That draft stage does not apply where the Minister declares the regulations urgent, or where a form of public consultation was carried out before the Act came into force.
Where regulations are made without the draft stage, article 55(3) lets any person, within one month after promulgation, make submissions to the Minister or ERA on why and how they should be revoked or amended. ERA must consider representations and report to the Minister, who may then amend the regulations.
What happened on the ground before the legal notice
The legal notice came at the end of a process that was already visible on site.
December 2025 to April 2026: consultation. Project Green ran a campaign called "Shape Your Space" on three planned national parks: White Rocks, Fort Campbell and Manoel Island. Its December 2025 release describes White Rocks as divided into three zones: built-up areas, the coast and mixed garrigue, and agricultural land, and reports an area of 369,000 square metres with structures on 38% of the land. Meetings followed with youth organisations, schools, residents, local councils, senior citizens and NGOs, including Nature Trust Malta. The online consultation closed on 30 April 2026.
February and March 2026: clearing the site. A cleanup by Project Green and the public cleansing services began in February, with close to 600 tonnes of waste removed in the first three days, much of it construction waste. By mid-March Project Green reported more than 7 million kilograms removed through 225 truck trips. Environment Minister Miriam Dalli said then that one of the first steps had been to "close off areas that could pose a danger to people".
May 2026: partial opening. On 7 May Project Green published the consultation results: more than 6,000 online submissions and about 100 workshops and focus groups with roughly 6,000 further participants. It reported that more than 22,000 tonnes of construction waste and dangerous structures had been removed, and that fencing, signs and picnic benches had been installed so the public could access the site in a safer way. "Today we can say that White Rocks is open in a safe manner for the public to enjoy," the Minister said. The same release states that the overall plan for the three parks is being drawn up with the architecture firm Chapman Taylor.
31 July 2026: the legal notice. L.N. 209 then fixed the park in law.
Project Green's press releases up to early October 2026 announce no published design or masterplan for the regeneration. What the future park will contain is therefore not yet a matter of public record, and any figures or layouts circulating informally should be treated with care.
What changes for residents, and what does not
What changes
The land now carries a legal designation as a national park. Article 53 of the Act lets the Minister revoke or amend regulations, so the designation is not irreversible, but undoing it would take another set of regulations made under the article 55 procedure.
There is a fixed boundary. Anyone with an interest in a plot at the edge of the area can check the schedule map in the legal notice rather than rely on descriptions.
The site is managed as public open space in practice. Fencing around hazards, signs and picnic benches have already been installed by Project Green, which also announced a Spring Festival on site for 16 and 17 May 2026.
What does not change
Existing lawful rights survive. Farmers working land inside the boundary, owners with servitudes or access rights, and anyone holding a valid permit keep them under regulation 4, subject to the law.
General environmental and planning law still applies. The Flora, Fauna and Natural Habitats Protection Regulations protect listed species and habitats wherever they occur, and regulation 20 of those regulations applies the assessment rules for protected sites to development permission under the Development Planning Act. Regulation 5 of L.N. 209 makes sure nothing in the park designation dilutes any of this.
ERA keeps its powers. Under article 69 of the Act, ERA keeps a list of protected areas, habitats and species and can make protection and conservation orders, published in the Gazette and on its website, restricting activities and works in a protected area. Owners of land subject to such protection can ask ERA to reconsider within 30 days. Article 70A also allows the Minister to hand the custody and administration of land to a local council or an NGO by guardianship deed for an environmental objective. Whether any of these tools will be used at White Rocks is not yet known.
The rest of the coast is unchanged. The legal notice covers only the area on its map. Neighbouring residential streets in Pembroke and the surrounding localities, and the coastline beyond the boundary, are not affected by it.
The wider north-east picture
For anyone choosing where to live on the eastern side of the island, White Rocks sits at the quieter end of the corridor that starts in Sliema and St Julian's. The density of that corridor is a well-known trade-off, discussed in our pieces on Malta's population density and on the concrete jungle headlines. Open land within walking distance is scarce here, which is why a protected block of several hundred thousand square metres stands out.
It is not the only change along this stretch of coast. On 6 October 2026, about 5,500 square metres of previously abandoned land along the Coast Road at Baħar iċ-Ċagħaq opened as Ġnien it-Tbissim, a family garden with play equipment, sanitary facilities and around 500 trees, open daily from 7:00am to 8:00pm in winter and until 10:00pm in summer. Project Green estimates that about 1,250 residents live within a ten-minute walk.
Practical notes for outdoor life on the north-east coast
- Check what is open before you go. Parts of White Rocks were opened in May with fencing around hazardous areas. Respect fenced zones; they surround structures that were judged unsafe.
- Plan around the heat. The garrigue and bare rock along this coast offer almost no shade. From June to September, mornings and evenings are the usable hours, as our summer heat guide explains in detail.
- Bring what you need. A designated national park does not yet mean facilities. Water, sun protection and proper shoes matter on uneven limestone.
- Free open space has real value. When you set a monthly budget along the lines of the cost of living breakdown, free access to coast and green space is part of the equation.
- Watch the Gazette. Site rules, a management structure or a conservation order would each arrive as a separate instrument. Those are the documents that will decide day-to-day use.
The short version: as of mid-October 2026, White Rocks is legally a national park with a fixed boundary and protected existing rights, open in parts and still being cleared, with its design and its rulebook still to come.
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