Tribunal revokes permit for 31-floor hotel at Fort Cambridge, raps PA for ignoring development brief

The Environment and Planning Review Tribunal has revoked the permit for a 31-storey hotel development on the ex-military barracks site at Fort Cambridge, Tigné.

The tribunal also rapped the Planning Authority for ignoring the development brief regulating development in this specific area.

The PA relied solely on the Height Adjustment Policy, which permits hotels to exceed the height limitations set in the local plan but completely overlooked the brief that limits development on the site to the existing four floors.

Additionally, despite the brief limiting floor space to 5,680sq.m, the PA had approved a development with a floor space of 25,600sq.m.

The tribunal has now ordered the PA to reconsider the case and issue a new case officer report evaluating the project on the basis of the development brief.

Moreover, the authority failed to show how a 31-storey tower “would respond positively to the surrounding context in terms of scale and height.”

The development of the hotel had been approved by 8 votes to 1 in July 2023.

The project is being proposed by GAP Ltd, which in 2007 was selected to develop Tigné’s Fort Cambridge according to the specifications of a development brief. 

The Fort Cambridge officers’ mess, whose façade was to be retained, was built between 1903 and 1905. The conversion of the barracks into a hotel in the 1980s resulted in the removal of the main porch on the north façade, and the conversion of existing rooms into double bedrooms. But most of the building’s external fabric remained intact.

The PA’s own Fort Cambridge Development Brief, approved in January 2006, described the barracks as a “landmark building” to be retained due to its historical and architectural importance, serving as a buffer between new, higher development and the surrounding residential blocks. “No additional floors over the third floor will be allowed over this landmark building,” the brief concluded.

The appeal was presented by Moviment Graffitti, Din l-Art Helwa and a number of residents, who were represented by lawyer Claire Bonello.