From Mr J. Portelli
The government, MEPA, the developers, and those on their side, are using nice arguments according to law why they should develop outside the development zone! They conclude that the natural environment, its scenic value and our open spaces will not suffer. But with all these arguments together, the natural environment in Gozo is dying. So your argumentation is wrong, or the Structural Plan has loopholes. Let me list some examples:
• The monster on top of Fort Chambray.
• The horrendous neglected racetrack gobbling up 80 tumoli of fertile land.
• The villas to be built overlooking Ramla l-Hamra giving the stamp of approval to an existing ugly development years ago and dealing a deathblow to the hopes that sometime in the future this would be remedied.
• The Nadur cemetery on the road leading to Ramla (why were the farmers concerned not consulted?) These farmers have 100 tumuli of agricultural land and the Ghajn Qasab spring provides about 15,000 gallons of water a day. The MRA stated that the blue clay formation slopes in a north/north-easterly direction. Does it imply that the run- off water from the cemetery will not affect the Ghajn Qasab spring which lies is in a west/north-westerly direction, when all the farmers who know the place say that some of the water at Ghajn Qasab comes from that slope where the cemetery is to be sited?
• A quarry between Dahlet Qorrot and Hondoq ir-Rummien now close to the sea.
• The villa of Dr Anton Refalo Labour MP overlooking Dahlet Qorrot Bay, which was originally one room with a footprint of 48 square metres, has now been extended by much more and has a boundary wall perched on top of a garigue environment. Perhaps Dr Anton needs to collect his thoughts in a serene environment after serving the nation and the poor and deserves this place, but it is still in an ODZ.
• The San Lawrenz Hotel is now rising higher than was originally planned.
• The proposed development at Hondoq ir-Rummien: a village outside the development zone! What a joke!
• The proposed golf course at Ta Cenc, a one plant savannah that may not be sustainable and left to fall into decay instead of the rich sustainable garigue.
• The batching plants in the Ta’ Xhajma plain.
• The villas and the cow farm at il-Qortin tar-Ramla.
Can we afford to lose Ramla Bay, Hondoq ir-Rummien and Ta’ Cenc too? Do we really need these developments? To my knowledge, both major political parties are not against these developments. They are like WWF pandas, picking their words carefully to sound environmentally friendly, or setting up a smoke screen by doing other environmentally friendly things; they are giving their approval to the destruction of the environment by their silence.
Everything is done legally using impressive arguments but which leave a disastrous result on the natural environment. So your arguments are flawed if the result is wrong – killing the environment and doing the common people and future generations an injustice without bloodying your hands.
Is MEPA the Malta Environmental and Planning Authority? I think not! It does not deserve to be called Maltese when it allows Malta and Gozo to be ruined. It is not environmental since it is not protecting the natural environment. It is not adhering to the Structural Plan, which says that it should protect the natural environment and it is not an authority because sometimes it does not seem to be impartial.
Maybe the Church wanted the cemetery with a mini church in the centre to make a public show of religion and the seriousness of death to the people, who go to Ramla, to value their suntanned bodies. It should have made a public show of religion by doing things correctly; she who teaches the religion of the Book, should have done things by the book: recommended an EIA, consulted the farmers and found a less sensitive site. Justice before piety.
Joe Portelli
NADUR