Updated | De Marco welcomes commitment on Ta’ Hagrat conservation

Prime Minister on Ta Hagrat • Video by Ray Attard.m4v

The Nationalist Party's deputy leader for parliamentary affairs Mario de Marco has welcomed a commitment by Prime Minister Joseph Muscat to issue a conservation order for the Ta' Hagrat temple in Mgarr.

In comments to MaltaToday, De Marco said the government must avail itself of the available "legal tools" to protect world heritage sites.

He added that one of the options which the PN government had looked into was for the government to buy back the property. "This was an option which would have safeguarded the site while the owners would have received the appropriate compensation," de Marco said.

Muscat is said to be seeking “the best legal option” to revoke the sanctioned development that is threatening the unique UNESCO World Heritage status of the Ta’ Hagrat Neolithic temple in Mgarr.

On his part, Muscat said the government was considering which measures could be adopted in order to revoke the permit and what compensations should be awarded to the owners.

“I have to consider everything, including the fact that the superintendent of cultural heritage did not object to the development but asked for modifications of the project which the applicants carried out,” Mucat told MaltaToday.

According to Muscat, “pressure increased in 2006” – the year during which the area in question was reportedly not excluded from a rationalisation exercise.

A senior spokesman for the Office of the Prime Minister confirmed on Saturday the decision for the planning permit’s imminent revocation, over public outrage on the threat of an apartment complex just metres away from the temple.

Earlier in the week, Labour deputy leader for party affairs Toni Abela expressed his shock at MEPA’s decision, which was then followed by a parliamentary motion filed by the Nationalist Party calling on the government to expropriate the plot of land in question.

The prime minister’s spokesman said the decision by the Malta Environment and Planning Authority had been based on a U-turn by the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage, which lifted its objections to the development, some time after the March 2013 elections.

The original application had been recommended for refusal at MEPA in 2008. 

Former environment minister George Pullicino has denied claims that the boundaries for development in the Ta’ Hagrat buffer zone had been changed under a Nationalist administration. Pullicino said that the development boundaries applicable today are the same as the boundaries approved back in 1989 in parliament tied to the Temporary Provision Schemes (TPS).

The Prime Minister’s spokesperson said that two options being considered were issuing an emergency conservation order, or a discontinuance order.

The Opposition has demanded that the government expropriates the land on which the apartments are being built, on the grounds that there is a public purpose to safeguard national heritage, against appropriate compensation.

But the spokesperson for the OPM said that the area in question had not been excluded from a rationalisation exercise carried out in 2006, when Malta’s development boundaries were increased and new pockets of land were included for development purposes.

On Thursday, PN deputy leader Mario de Marco, flanked by MP Ryan Callus, who sits on the MEPA board, announced that they would filing a parliamentary motion to expropriate the plot that had been given a permit.

The motion called on the government to honour its responsibilities under the UNESCO Convention of World Heritage in 1972, and to expropriate the land in question against compensation to its owners. “In this case there is a clear case of public purpose, to safeguard the identity of the megalithic temples of Ta’ Hagrat for the benefit of present and future generations,” the two MPs said.