Lesley Kreupl’s reply (TMIS, 2 September) to my letter on the above subject (TMIS, 26 August) was goody-goody in tone (we foreigners in Gozo only want to protect you from yourselves) but still contained misinformed distortions about this eco-friendly and sustainable project.

First, let me answer Ms Kreupl’s quip about Austria’s democracy. I can assure her that I am well aware that Austria is now a democracy though not exactly an “old” one with a liberal tradition. Expropriation (Austrian style) of the entire Ta’ Cenc site (ouch – how the owners of the existing villas would jump) cannot be a reasonable option. Respect for private property is fundamental in our democratic system.

Secondly, because it seems that she is associating me with the owner of Ta’ Cenc by inference, let me inform her that I have always much enjoyed my visits to national parks in the United States and Canada with my family without the helping hand of any local landowner in Gozo or elsewhere. Because I attach great importance and significance to the creation of a protected Heritage Park at Ta’ Cenc does not mean that I am in cahoots with the owner whom I respect mainly because he is willing to set aside a substantial tract of his land and set it up at his own expense for the free benefit of all. But I have no vested personal interest in this project and I certainly have no association with the owner or with any of his other hotels or business interests. Most importantly, I have no axe to grind.

Quite incorrectly and unfairly, the Ta’ Cenc project has been depicted by some as a concrete jungle of seven-storey hotels awash with hundreds of surrounding villas in the middle of a mega golf course and with no mention of the proposed Heritage Park. The truth is that the footprint of the proposed hotel and villas project accounts for only 1.7 per cent of the entire area while the protected Heritage Park will be allocated over 60 per cent of the land. The golf course in zone 7 is NOT on the cards (and if re-proposed in the future, it would be subject to another gruelling EIA). The hysterics of the present anti lobby in the name of the environment are therefore quite unwarranted.

The Local Plan, the Structure Plan, Natura 2000, the future of zone 7 (golf or no golf course), the hotel extension with truillos (no increase in height), the new hotel (no higher than the adjacent reservoir which it will hide from view) and the villas (not numerous and not in the middle of the Heritage Park but alongside the existing villas) are all peripheral in importance to the creation of a well researched and funded Heritage Park in the Maltese Islands, which, if realised will be a historic first.

Back to Ms Kreuple’s letter where she states that this project will not create jobs. Hello – is the accommodation industry run by robots? Everyone knows that the entire leisure industry is seriously labour intensive and itself generates an infrastructure of supporting services performed by employees. She then concedes that at least national parks will after all create “employment in the form of guides, park rangers and so on in addition to other services required by visitors”; presumably she means hotels, restaurants, car rentals, shops and so on!

Next, she says Gozo can never be a 5-star destination because the infrastructure is not there and anyway, the competition is too great from other far more unspoilt islands and coastal resorts. She does not mention which or where these destinations are. Be that as it may, we need to create precisely that very infrastructure which those very islands and coastal resorts have all upgraded and invested in. Then we could perhaps be better able to compete. It is said that the pillars of 5-star tourism are golf and yachting along with ancillary high quality accommodations, restaurants and shopping precincts in non-tacky resort areas. The rest – climate, history, archaeology and now even cultural events – the Maltese Islands have in abundance. Clearly, it would make ecological sense to keep the number of tourists down. To make up for the revenue we would need to raise prices and attract the more affluent visitor – hence the urgent need to upgrade. But if Gozo only aspires to become a third age destination for oldies – like myself or Ms Kreupl (her admission) – and for hoards of ferragosto students in summer as in Malta, then decline will set in and the Islands will become irrelevant in the global tourism scheme of things.

To sum up, the fact remains that the most important and crucial part of the proposed Ta’ Cenc project is the protected Heritage Park. For it to be realised, balanced judgements and compromises will need to be thrashed out along with meaningful conditions to include the provision of increased resources for the Ta Cenc management to ensure higher standards than those found at present. Hopefully this can be done in a calm and sensible manner without further mud slinging, distortion or omission of facts, misinformation and vilification of individuals of differing opinions in the press and in public hearings by all the parties concerned. That is the only honourable way forward.

As Churchill once remarked, “Better jaw-jaw than war-war”.

Eric Gerada-Azzopardi

NAXXARLesley Kreupl’s reply (TMIS, 2 September) to my letter on the above subject (TMIS, 26 August) was goody-goody in tone (we foreigners in Gozo only want to protect you from yourselves) but still contained misinformed distortions about this eco-friendly and sustainable project.

First, let me answer Ms Kreupl’s quip about Austria’s democracy. I can assure her that I am well aware that Austria is now a democracy though not exactly an “old” one with a liberal tradition. Expropriation (Austrian style) of the entire Ta’ Cenc site (ouch – how the owners of the existing villas would jump) cannot be a reasonable option. Respect for private property is fundamental in our democratic system.

Secondly, because it seems that she is associating me with the owner of Ta’ Cenc by inference, let me inform her that I have always much enjoyed my visits to national parks in the United States and Canada with my family without the helping hand of any local landowner in Gozo or elsewhere. Because I attach great importance and significance to the creation of a protected Heritage Park at Ta’ Cenc does not mean that I am in cahoots with the owner whom I respect mainly because he is willing to set aside a substantial tract of his land and set it up at his own expense for the free benefit of all. But I have no vested personal interest in this project and I certainly have no association with the owner or with any of his other hotels or business interests. Most importantly, I have no axe to grind.

Quite incorrectly and unfairly, the Ta’ Cenc project has been depicted by some as a concrete jungle of seven-storey hotels awash with hundreds of surrounding villas in the middle of a mega golf course and with no mention of the proposed Heritage Park. The truth is that the footprint of the proposed hotel and villas project accounts for only 1.7 per cent of the entire area while the protected Heritage Park will be allocated over 60 per cent of the land. The golf course in zone 7 is NOT on the cards (and if re-proposed in the future, it would be subject to another gruelling EIA). The hysterics of the present anti lobby in the name of the environment are therefore quite unwarranted.

The Local Plan, the Structure Plan, Natura 2000, the future of zone 7 (golf or no golf course), the hotel extension with truillos (no increase in height), the new hotel (no higher than the adjacent reservoir which it will hide from view) and the villas (not numerous and not in the middle of the Heritage Park but alongside the existing villas) are all peripheral in importance to the creation of a well researched and funded Heritage Park in the Maltese Islands, which, if realised will be a historic first.

Back to Ms Kreuple’s letter where she states that this project will not create jobs. Hello – is the accommodation industry run by robots? Everyone knows that the entire leisure industry is seriously labour intensive and itself generates an infrastructure of supporting services performed by employees. She then concedes that at least national parks will after all create “employment in the form of guides, park rangers and so on in addition to other services required by visitors”; presumably she means hotels, restaurants, car rentals, shops and so on!

Next, she says Gozo can never be a 5-star destination because the infrastructure is not there and anyway, the competition is too great from other far more unspoilt islands and coastal resorts. She does not mention which or where these destinations are. Be that as it may, we need to create precisely that very infrastructure which those very islands and coastal resorts have all upgraded and invested in. Then we could perhaps be better able to compete. It is said that the pillars of 5-star tourism are golf and yachting along with ancillary high quality accommodations, restaurants and shopping precincts in non-tacky resort areas. The rest – climate, history, archaeology and now even cultural events – the Maltese Islands have in abundance. Clearly, it would make ecological sense to keep the number of tourists down. To make up for the revenue we would need to raise prices and attract the more affluent visitor – hence the urgent need to upgrade. But if Gozo only aspires to become a third age destination for oldies – like myself or Ms Kreupl (her admission) – and for hoards of ferragosto students in summer as in Malta, then decline will set in and the Islands will become irrelevant in the global tourism scheme of things.

To sum up, the fact remains that the most important and crucial part of the proposed Ta’ Cenc project is the protected Heritage Park. For it to be realised, balanced judgements and compromises will need to be thrashed out along with meaningful conditions to include the provision of increased resources for the Ta Cenc management to ensure higher standards than those found at present. Hopefully this can be done in a calm and sensible manner without further mud slinging, distortion or omission of facts, misinformation and vilification of individuals of differing opinions in the press and in public hearings by all the parties concerned. That is the only honourable way forward.

As Churchill once remarked, “Better jaw-jaw than war-war”.

Eric Gerada-Azzopardi

NAXXAR