From Mr A. Camilleri

If I am not mistaken, the Minister under whose aegis MEPA operates, formally announced some months ago that he had prepared a set of neighbour-friendly regulations (not guidelines) for the building industry to safeguard victimised neighbours from the ravages and destructive effect of clumsy demolition squads pulling down adjacent houses, supervised, if at all, by neglectful architects.

Such careless demolition of adjacent houses not only is a colossal nuisance with its cranes, skips, bulldozers, jackhammers, compressors, cement trucks and pavement-destructive heavy vehicles but also causes germ-laden dirt, hassle, street closures, cracks in third-party walls, death and injuries, damage to foundations, and so on, for an unknown period of years in the core of old Sliema supposedly being conserved as an Urban Conservation Area. The emphasis here is on the word “Conservation”.

One is legitimately concerned to learn without any procrastination when the responsible Minister intends to publish his legal regulations to safeguard the safety and well being of such neighbours. One should not need to remind the Minister and MEPA of the fatal tragedies that occurred in Sliema and St Paul’s Bay caused by similar risky demolition.

Albert Camilleri

SLIEMA