It was a hot, sticky Friday afternoon and the air-conditioning system had gone bust when the hearing on the appeal filed by the applicants of the controversial Ramla l-Hamra development was about to start at the Gozo University Centre in Xewkija.

Planning Appeals Board chairman Ian Spiteri Bailey searched for some fresh air as sweat started to form on his forehead and yet he kept his calm; not only that – he was even kind enough to allow the applicants two weeks to settle the matter regarding the fee they had failed to pay in full on filing the appeal.

Under similar circumstances, such appeals are declared null, and at the beginning of the hearing, the applicants’ legal advisor, Carmelo Galea, said that the Malta Environment and Planning Authority (Mepa) had actually said that the appeal would have to be invalidated.

Mepa had granted a permit for the development of Ulysses Lodge, overlooking the beautiful Ramla l-Hamra, into a 23-unit villa tourist complex, but later revoked both the outline and the full development permit because part of the site earmarked for development was found to be public land.

The developers failed to pay the full amount required on filing their appeal and the hearing was deferred until 28 November, provided that the fee is paid within the two-week period granted.

In view of the decision taken by the Planning Appeals Board, Alternattiva Demokratika secretary-general and Gozo spokesman Victor Galea questioned whether the Appeals Board would have been so considerate with a common citizen.

“Had it been a commoner, instead of a speculator, who failed to settle the payment required for the appeal, would the Appeals Board have been so good as to allow two weeks for him to sort out the matter according to law, and defer the appeal till November?”

It does make you wonder, particularly considering the hassles one has to go through every day when it comes to bureaucratic matters, especially legal matters.

In any event, the Ramla l-Hamra saga goes on. The government wants to turn Gozo into an ecological island and a tourist destination with a difference. And yet speculators, in Gozo especially, have the power to do what they fancy, depending on the depth of their pockets.

Ramla l-Hamra, Ta’ Cenc, Hondoq ir-Rummien... they are certainly all places with the potential to make Gozo an ecological island par excellence – but does the ecological value of these places really come before everything else? Does anything ever stand in the face of speculators’ greed?