No one in the room really saw it coming. The board had been discussing the application to site a monument in abstract art of four knights at the entrance of Valletta and, although there were some arguments, it seemed the application would be approved, considering also it had been presented by a government body, the Grand Harbour Regeneration Corporation.

But when the vote was called, only three board members voted in favour, including PL representative Joe Sammut while up to nine members, including the acting chairperson (the chairman had ruled himself out because of a conflict of interest) voted against it.

The application was to position a monument showing four knights at the entrance to Valletta. The position had been changed twice before the present application and had been changed from a bas relief to a full sculpture. Another change was that instead of being very near the wall, it was to be sited around a metre out of the wall, so that it would not detract from the lighting of the wall behind it. Yet the composite statue of four conjoined knights, slightly larger than life and stylized, would not intrude on people entering Valletta as it was to be sited outside the corridor that continues from the bridge into the square with the Parliament on one side and the housing complex on the other.

The Directorate told the board that CHAC, the body concerned with cultural heritage, has always been against the application while the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage had no objection to raise as long as the statue was reversible. SCH went further: ideally there should not be one monument but many temporary art exhibitions. CHAC’s argument was mainly that the monument would detract from the Renzo Piano project and plan for that area.

Surprisingly, there was no reaction at all by the public regarding this application.

MP Ryan Callus analysed the varying positions of CHAC and SCH, then he widened the focus by trying to speak about not just the experts’ opposition to this monument but also as regards the relocation of the Monti, but he was stopped by the Acting Chairperson from going down that road. Mr Callus reiterated Mepa would be making a mistake if it focused only on the application. What would Mepa do if someone thought to add more monuments along the grand staircase on the side? This application is against the local plan which insists on respect for the context. It does not respect the spirit of the Bieb il-Belt project.

Timmy Gambin made a strong attack on the application. It was said the monument was to honour the knights in their defence of Valletta. But the knights never defended Valletta and, when it was attacked, they surrendered to the French. It would be far better to set up a monument to the anti-aircraft soldiers who did defend Valletta.

Besides, there is the classic monument by Antonio Sciortino to commemorate the Great Siege.

The proposed monument does interfere with the minimalist lines of Renzo Piano. All in all, it would be out of place there.

The artist, John Grima, countered some of the arguments that had been presented. First of all, this is not a monument but a work of art. (Timmy Gambin: that’s subjective). It is not a monument to the knights but a work of art inspired by the spirit of the knights, looking both at the past and into the future, facing the challenges of the future with the spirit of the knights. Mr Grima accused the media of having always been against this venture.

Then came the vote, with its surprising result, welcomed in perfect silence. After a brief moment, mobile phones of different members started to ring and people got up from their place and went outside to answer the calls.

Although, quite correctly, the board meeting had to remain focused on this application only, nevertheless in the light of the current controversies about the relocation of the Monti, one cannot not but compare the two issues. On the one hand, an application to set up a statue passed through the whole Mepa process and at the end submitted to the vote of the board while the relocation of the Monti, which, consisting of movable furniture, is not considered as requiring an application and can be decided by a political decision. On the strength of this decision there is no doubt that the Mepa board, had it been asked, would have turned down the relocation. Such is the basic inconsistency about spatial planning in our country.