The notice should have been sent straightaway, as the applicant only has 30 days to submit an application to be heard before the Appeals Board, he explained. Sources at Mepa confirmed that the letter has only recently been sent and may still be in the mail. However, the 30-day period to apply for an appeal starts once the notification has been sent to the applicant and not from the date of the hearing.

Mr Xuereb confirmed that he will be appealing against the Mepa board’s decision, saying that his application was not given a fair hearing. He substantiated the claim with a number of points.

Developers are usually given a 30-day mandatory period between the day the report is submitted by the Planning Directorate and the hearing of the Mepa board for their reaction.

This time, however, it had been agreed that the Planning Directorate report – which was against the application – was to be issued much closer to the established hearing date. AX Holdings had accepted that the report be issued 10 days before the hearing.

However, Mr Xuereb complained, the applicants did not even have those 10 days, as the company was given the report only on Friday, 3 September, six days before the Mepa board hearing on Thursday, 9 September.

AX Holdings submitted its reaction on Tuesday, 7 September, which meant that there was little time for the Mepa board to digest it, considering that 8 September is a national holiday.

TMID asked why he had not complained about the matter earlier and asked for the hearing to be postponed.

Mr Xuereb said that he had made arrangements with some 25 experts, lawyers and architects, some of whom had come to Malta from abroad.

“It would have been really difficult to arrange a different date, not to mention that it would have cost a fortune.”

He insisted that his application was not heard properly. Such a large-scale application, which was shrouded in controversy for so long, should have been given more attention, he complained.

Only the board’s deputy chairman had held an informal meeting with the Planning Directorate some time before the hearing; the rest of the board members had only gained access to the details of the case on the same morning of the hearing.

Added to this, Mr Xuereb said, the company was not given enough time to present its case during the hearing itself. He said that AX Holdings had prepared a 3,000-page report that had to be presented by the lawyers in a few minutes.

“We did not even have time to give the power point presentation we had prepared,” he said.