Applications submitted during the Malta Environment and Planning Authority public consultation period will be assessed according to the criteria set by Cabinet without any public scrutiny or chance for objection.

This has come about since, apart from comments for or against MEPA’s areas to be added to the development zones, during the consultation period landowners also submitted new applications for land to be included in the schemes.

The government claims it is trying to put right the injustices of the 1988 temporary schemes, which were drawn up by the newly-elected Nationalist government in order to control the unchecked building activity carried out during the previous administration.

“However, the fact that fresh submissions of ODZ land made during the period of public consultation will not be examined by the public makes a mockery of the whole process,” said a spokesperson for NGO Flimkien Ghal Ambjent Ahjar (FAA).

This is giving rise to the suspicion that people who were interested in submitting their land might have been told to wait until the public consultation process began. The assurance that new applications will be judged by the criteria laid down by Cabinet, also fails to inspire confidence, as some of Mepa’s own proposals do not even remotely conform to those criteria.

According to a report in in-Nazzjon some days before the deadline, 80 per cent of the submissions received by MEPA were in favour of adding more land to the proposed development and only 20 per cent were against the new development zones.

In an attempt to create public awareness and give a true reflection of public opinion, Flimkien Ghal Ambjent Ahjar sent out an email listing the pressure group’s objections to Environment and Rural Affairs Minister George Pullicino’s plan.

Over 1,000 people sent their objections through the group’s web site in 48 hours while around 700 had sent their objections to MEPA’s email by the required deadline. Another thousand signed petitions by groups opposing the plans in Mellieha and Msida.