The silent authorities are failing Malta and Gozo

Over the past years, I have repeatedly sounded the alarm in these very pages about the direction our planning authority is taking. But the situation has now deteriorated to a point where silence from within the decision-making chambers has become louder than any objection that is raised.

The decisions of the Planning Authority, its commissions and board, together with the support—tacit or explicit—of the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage, are letting the nation down in no small way.

Consider just the evidence that immediately comes to mind. The Ġgantija Heights project, looming near one of the most ancient free-standing structures in human history, a UNESCO World Heritage site in Gozo, threatens to irrevocably alter a landscape setting that has survived millennia.

In our established residential areas and Urban Conservation Areas across Malta and Gozo, we witness inappropriate developments—oversized, out of character, and seemingly designed to maximise profit rather than respect context. Around St George’s Bay, massive, out-of-scale developments rise with little regard for skyline, sunlight, or sense of place, not to mention infrastructural services. And perhaps most disgracefully, permits have been issued to demolish most of the British Barracks at Fort Chambray, a site now listed on Europa Nostra’s Seven Most Endangered Sites in Europe. That a historic military complex of such importance should be carved up for development while the world watches is a national embarrassment.

Yet, perhaps the most disturbing feature of our current system is not the projects themselves, but the process or lack thereof.

I have personally witnessed, time and time again, what happens when these applications come before the planning commissions or board. Residents’ associations, NGOs or indeed concerned individuals present carefully researched objections. Neighbours speak of lost light, increased traffic, ruination of Urban Conservation Areas and obliterated vistas. Heritage bodies and NGOs cite laws, policies and environmental degradation. And then? Absolutely no discussion whatsoever by the members. No debate. No probing questions. No request for further information. The vote is taken immediately after the last objector sits down with the chairperson raising a hand saying: ‘Dawk favur l-applikazzjoni?’ (Those in favour of the application?).

There is no accountability. No transparency. No visible wrestling with conscience, policy, regulations or indeed aesthetics.

Contrast this with the Planning Area Permit Boards of the 1980s and 1990s. However imperfect that system may have been, there was often genuine discussion—members argued, questioned, and sometimes changed their minds. Today’s silence is shocking by comparison. Even case officers who prepare development permission application reports now remain anonymous. How can we hold anyone to account when we do not even know who wrote the report?

Let us return to first principles. The Declaration of Principles in the Constitution of Malta includes a clear clause determining that the state shall safeguard the landscape and the artistic patrimony of the nation. That is not aspirational poetry; it is a foundational commitment. But Chapter II of that same Declaration ends abruptly with an opt-out clause: The provisions of this chapter shall not be enforceable in any court.

The Constitution may deny enforceability, but it does not absolve moral responsibility. The State clearly has a duty, at the very least, not to facilitate or encourage the ruination of the landscape and artistic patrimony of the Nation. To remain silent while speculators dismantle Fort Chambray; to wave through overbearing towers in St George’s Bay; to approve apartments beside the Ġgantija temples, is to actively contravene the spirit of that declaration.

That opt-out clause leaves our natural environment and cultural heritage not only at the mercy of natural degradation, but also prey to conspiring and grasping speculators who have no genuine interest in safeguarding what makes Malta and Gozo unique. For them, heritage is an obstacle. For us; for Din l-Art Ħelwa, for residents, for all who love these islands, heritage is our common wealth.  Should the Planning Law Bills 143 and 144 be brought off the shelves and passed through parliament, there will be no obstacles left. The laws will pre-empt and obliterate any attempt to appeal against any development permission.

Malta’s true wealth lies not in speculative development. It lies in the beauty, history and identity that we, as active NGOs, choose to preserve for the good of society and future generations. Future generations who will surely judge us not by what we built on every last field and fort, but by what we had the courage and wisdom to protect.

But most importantly, we call on the state to restore genuine discussion to its Planning Authority Commissions and board and there is only one obvious way to do this. We call on the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage to uphold its mandate without fear or favour. The state cannot remain mum.

Silence is complicity, whether we like it or not.