SPED: Busuttil warns against return to ‘Lorry Sant days’

Opposition leader warns strategic plan for planning and the environment and MEPA demerger will give the government more control over planning than it has had 'since the days of Dom Mintoff and Lorry Sant' 

Opposition leader Simon Busuttil presented a motion, calling for the “ambiguous” Strategic Plan for the Environment to be sent back to MEPA for further study.

Speaking during the second reading of the SPED in Parliament, he warned that the last time the government had so much control over planning that it will have now was in the days of Dom Mintoff and Lorry Sant.

“The government considers the environment as an obstacle that is standing in the way of doing what it wants,” he said. “The SPED is intentionally vague and intended to give the government absolute power in development while weakening environmental protection and the possibility of sustainable and balanced development.

“It will change Malta’s face into one of excess development controlled only by a government that wants to do what it wants and has too many obligations towards people who elevated it to power.”

The SPED has been criticised by green NGOs, who have warned that it will allow projects to be constructed in land outside development zones if no "feasible" solution can be found. 

He quoted the Church’s Environment Commission who had described the SPED as a “far-cry” from the 1990 structure plan that it will replace.

“Rather than building on a summary for such a reform that was presented by the previous administration, it left it as it was and weakened it,” he said.

If the motion fails, the Opposition will present a second motion for an amendment in the SPED to clarify that all changes in ODZ boundaries be approved by Parliament.

“The SPED is too ambiguous about this, and we want to clarify that all changes in ODZ must pass through Parliament as they always have,” he said.

Busuttil accused the government of profiting from Parliament’s summer break to rush through two new laws- the SPED and the planned MEPA demerger.

He had harsh words to say about the latter three Bills, which he warned will weaken the environment and render the new Environment Authority a mere “external consultee” to the Planning Authority.

“The Prime Minister will keep MEPA’s planning arm under his portfolio, and cut off MEPA’s environmental arm and give it to [Environment Minister] Leo Brincat, the most ineffective minister in the Cabinet,” Busuttil said.

He also criticised the government for giving eNGOs less than 24 hours’ notice before inviting them to an urgent parliamentary debate on the demerger earlier on today.

“The government is all about poses, pictures, and bluff but no substance,” he said, while questioning why the government wants to rush through the introduction of this new law rather than postponing its second reading until the completion of its public consultation.

He added that planning decisions will no longer be taken by the MEPA board but by a fresh committee, whose members will all be government-appointed.

“Rather than strengthening our institutions, the government is weakening them and filling them up with yes men,” he said. 

In response, environment minister Leo Brincat hit out at the previous administration’s track record on reducing ODZ boundaries and insisted that ODZ should only be built on as a “very last resort”.

He insisted that the SPED is not an environmental document, but a planning one, to ensure that development is “objectively sustainable”.

“In 2012, the previous administration had pledged to introduce a strategic environmental and planning law within ten months, but backed out because it didn’t want to take a difficult decision,” he said, adding that he intends the SPED to be a “dynamic document that is constantly under scrutiny”.

On the MEPA demerger, he recounted how the vast majority of green NGOs declared their stance in favour of it prior to the 2013 general election and said that their considerations in the upcoming consultation stage will be taken on board when the Bill is discussed in its third reading that will be held once Parliament reconvenes from its summer recess.