editorial

Shaking the PA to its foundations

The Planning Authority has come in for a lot of flak recently.

This is nothing new; perhaps the PA was put on too high a pedestal when it was opened, amid fanfares, heralding the end of an era when money bought planning permission and signalling the dawn of autonomy and transparency in the sensitive areas of building and development.

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But recently, the criticism has become more intense. Perhaps this is due to the number of high profile cases that have made the news recently. Or maybe it is because, as we move into an era when more people are demanding a greater degree of accountability, there is pressure on organisations like the PA to deliver.

Either way, the comments made by the renowned architect, Richard England, about the PA in our interview today are ones that unfortunately have been uttered by countless observers before, and will undoubtedly be said again and again in the future.

Prof. England touches on two issues which, in one form or another, have wound up being the bulk of the criticism thrown at the authority.

One of these is the question of whether an organisation such as the PA can really function well on an island this size, while the other is an accusation that the authority appears to run after the small fry, while the big fish get away scot-free.

One could argue that problem number one – Malta’s small size – is not the PA’s fault. This is true. And everybody knows that it is not easy to set up organisations and expect them to run autonomously on an island where everybody knows everybody else. Nods and smiles and pats on the back get papers moved to the top of piles behind many an office door – let’s not pretend they don’t.

But the very size of our island intensifies the importance, which the PA must attach to transparency and accountability. Its very credibility rests on this. The criticism it has received over certain cases recently and flak over some rather dubious decisions will do little to instil faith among the people in the PA. And if that faith is not there, then the entire concept behind the setting-up of the authority has been shattered.

The public also becomes sceptical when it sees powerful developers apparently able to wiggle their way round the rules, either overtly or subtly. Some cases are glaring, others only make the media if some committed green activist or another gets his hands on the necessary paperwork.

As our opinion writer, David Pace, points out today, the PA is hardly likely to be taken seriously if abuses or at best, lamentable mistakes, are rectified with laughable penalties, which wind up benefiting the very person they were supposed to be punishing.

And who hasn’t read a report of someone being refused permission for a washroom, while we simultaneously witness the slipping away, forever, of more and more of the last bits of green land we possess?

One doesn’t make the other right, but it does seem that some enforcement orders are easier to slap onto buildings than others, as our report on the San Tumas boathouses shows. All the authorities, in one form or another, seem to be distancing themselves from this thorny issue.

The government has concentrated on the people at Armier. Who can blame these guys for feeling picked upon? No wonder they are cynical about whether the day will ever arrive on which the big fish with the lidos also get their comeuppance.

The principle behind the PA is admirable. But a principle has to work in practice, however challenging that organisation’s brief is. If not, the reason for its whole existence comes into question.