In a decision bound to leave conservationists and the archaeological community dumbstruck, the controversial development of a villa with a pool within the limits of Gozo’s Xaghra Stone Circle has been given the green light.

As reported by The Malta Independent on Sunday back in July, the Malta Environment and Planning Authority’s Development Control Commission had been advised to grant permission to a private developer to build a two-storey house and swimming pool adjacent to Gozo’s prehistoric Xaghra Circle.

The site in question lies in the middle of an archaeologically rich area – in the shadow of the Ggantija Temple and partly within the limits of the important Xaghra Circle archaeological site.

Following the recommendation by the development permission application report to grant permission, the DCC has now sanctioned the development.

Now the controversial decision has been taken, one can only hope excavation work for the laying of foundations and the construction of the swimming pool at the site are properly monitored due to its high archaeological sensitivity.

When recommending the development application’s approval in July of last year, the Cultural Heritage Advisory Committee (CHAC) found “no objection to the proposal from a heritage point of view provided that the excavation work is monitored by the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage”.

The proviso is meant to apply to all excavation work in sensitive areas but, in practice, it is the exception rather than the rule.

MEPA’s development permission application report had noted that the back of the site falls within an area designated as an archaeological park. It did not, however, mention consultations with or feedback from the Integrated Heritage Management Team or the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage.

The bodies were allowed 30 days in which to provide their feedback on the proposed development during the application’s assessment stage, failing which they were to have been considered to have had no objection.

Any resistance to the development is believed to have faltered for lack of such feedback.

Neither does MEPA’s report mention the fact that Xaghra Stone Circle is a Grade 1 archaeological site and as such should have a 100-metre buffer zone between its parameter and the closest development.

Archaeologists speaking to this newspaper have expressed strong objection to any development permission in such proximity to the Xaghra Stone Circle – one of the country’s most interesting and richest archaeological sites.

The MEPA officer’s report acknowledges that the bulk of the site lies outside the development zone, but that part of the site falls within the development zone.

As such the report had considered the proposed development as an “edge-of-scheme development and is designed to mitigate the blank wall that would otherwise have been created by the adjacent development”.

The Xaghra Stone Circle, also referred to as the Brochtorff Circle, lies 350 metres from the Ggantija Temple, the largest on the Maltese Islands, and had been in use since roughly 4,000 BCE.

The site served primarily as a necropolis in which at least 800 individuals were interred according to the study of bones recovered during excavations, along with a wealth of funerary items and artefacts.