A legal battle took up most of the time at yesterday’s Mepa board meeting arguing about a Transport Malta email’s validity or otherwise.

At the end, the Mepa board (less the two MPs on it) voted to revoke a permit it had already issued for a car wash on the Birkirkara Bypass.

The area is near a roundabout just a short distance from the new Golden Harvest factory.

Mepa had issued a permit for a car wash there in January 2011 but an objector later pointed out that the area had been earmarked as a recreation area.

A far more serious objection was raised by another person who claimed that the plans had not been endorsed by Transport Malta.

During the course of yesterday’s sitting, the directorate stated that when the application was being processed, it informed the applicant to get a TM approval.

When the second objector turned up and claimed there was no TM endorsement, the directorate sent for the applicant who produced an email from four TM officials on a TM webpage, but bearing no TM stamp.

The objector also claimed that the car wash could not be sited there for this is an arterial road.

The directorate wrote back to TM, and contacted Lucien Stafrace, who is a top manager at TM (he used to work at Mepa before the changeover). Mr Stafrace then came back and said the email could not be considered as an official TM document.

Obviously, this made the applicant see red. In the past weeks, the applicant applied to the courts for a warrant of prohibitory injunction (mandat ta’ inibizzjoni) but this was turned down.

Yesterday, he turned up accompanied by top legal gun Prof. Ian Refalo as his legal consultant and a legal battle ensued between Prof Refalo, Mepa chairman Austin Walker and CEO Ian Stafrace.

Prof. Refalo first tried to argue that the Mepa board had already decided the issue in the absence of the applicant. Mr Walker said this was not true but the Mepa board does not function as a court. If the applicant feels he has been wronged, he could always take legal action.

Prof. Refalo then argued that the TM representatives should be brought so that he could interrogate them. Again, Mr Walker said the TM board does not act as a court does.

Dr Stafrace said the applicant knew about this situation for six months and could have, had he really wanted, produce TM officers himself.

Prof. Refalo countered that TM had changed its position and his client was being disadvantaged as a result. Mr Walker said the applicant should take that up with TM itself.

Then the discussion focused on whether the document from the TM officials presented at an earlier stage could be called a false document. No one is saying it is a false document, Dr Stafrace countered, but TM was now saying it is not an official TM document.

The applicant’s architect, Andrew Ellul, said he had studied other cases where TM officials such as David Vassallo or Audrey Testaferrata de Noto had sent reports and all had been done through emails and no one had objected.

Board member Philip Manduca asked whether it was possible for the TM officials to be asked to be present so they could clarify the issue but Mr Walker ruled this out: Mepa has its own procedures and the aim behind Article 77 is to see if the proper procedures were kept or otherwise the permit is revoked.

In a final bid before the board voted, it was noted that the letter from Mr Stafrace said “I” and did not say he was representing TM.

The chairman then stopped the already far too long discussion and the board members unanimously voted to revoke the permit.

A Mepa statement later said that last week, the authority referred this case to the Police to investigate.