While the Partit Demokratiku has been asking for a discussion regarding the Fuel Service Station Policy in the Parliamentary Committee for Environment and Development Planning since last November, no date for the debate has yet been set, PD MP Godfrey Farrugia told The Malta Independent on Sunday.

Farrugia told this newspaper that, late last November, the PD MPs had written a letter to Committee chairman Alex Muscat, asking that a meeting to discuss and revisit the fuel service station policy be called.

The letter read: "Malta boasts 77 fuel stations, eight of which are in Gozo. The Planning Authority is presently screening a number of applications, some of which were submitted before 2015, and has also granted at least one permit in breach of the approved policy."

The letter, signed by PD MPs Marlene and Godfrey Farrugia, notes a number of shortcomings in the policy, and says that the "policy can theoretically allow for a fuel station permit to be issued every 500m along a stretch of road passing through rural land."

It also noted that, once a fuel station application is approved, and rural land is disturbed "there is neither supervision nor enforcement while such a project is completed."

The PD MPs point out in their letter, that the policy "does not support government's recent declaration that local transport should go electric by 2040."

It criticises the Planning Authority, stating that the PA is not actively embarking on "what the policy itself encourages, the relocation of fuel stations from urban areas to ODZ land", and that it is "not actively embarking on a campaign and an implementation process so that first preference is given to locations designated as 'Industrial Areas', 'SME sites', 'Areas of Containment' or 'Open Storage Areas'."

The letter also reads that "land speculators are being encouraged to buy relatively cheap agricultural land and turn it into a rural commercial gold mine by utilising such a policy."

Godfrey Farrugia told this newsroom that, on 18 December, this letter was read out at a Committee meeting and it was decided that it would be included on the agenda of - and discussed at - a subsequent meeting, where both PA and ERA representatives would be present. He said, however, that he is still waiting for a date to be announced. He noted that, currently, it appears the committee is focusing on one issue at a time, rather than meeting frequently with different agendas being discussed simultaneously as the committee used to do in the past and as other committees still do.

The issue regarding the number of fuel stations on the islands has been widely debated recently, and some controversial applications have made headlines.

This newsroom recently published an article about an application in respect of Tal-Balal Road, which would see a station built just down the road from an already existing station.

Another particularly controversial application was recently approved for Magħtab, where the relocation of a fuel station to this site caused uproar among objectors. PA board members originally took a preliminary vote which indicated its intention to turn down the application and yet, to the surprise of objectors, this resulted in a vote in favour of it just weeks later. The objectors argue that a number of PA board members who were not present for the preliminary vote - where the presentation by the objectors was delivered - took part in the final vote.