I refer to the letter entitled “No insinuations please” by Peter Gingell from the communications office at Malta Environment and Planning Authority (MEPA), in response to my letter of 20 February entitled “Yet another ecological zone to be destroyed”.

Mr Gingell says that “the applicant has only recently been advised that an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) update is required for this planning application to continue being processed”. It is reassuring to hear that Mepa has now finally realised that an (EIA) is required, even though this has happened three years after the original permit application to construct the development of apartments on a protected ecological site, as defined in the EIA carried out prior to the original issue of the permit for the entire Portomaso development.

One now hopes that this EIA update will be carried out in a fully open manner, subject to the scrutiny of all interested parties and NGOs.

Still, it appears strange that the drawings for this application under PA04096/09, appear in Mepa’s own website as being “recommended for approval”, when the EIA update process is only just starting, and notwithstanding the statement by Mepa’s own natural heritage panel, the HAC (natural panel), that “the panel cannot recommend approval of this application since one of the conditions in the permit for the Portomaso Complex had specified that this particular site should be conserved as an ecological enclave in line with the EIA. The ecological survey commissioned by the applicant also indicated the presence of species of flora and fauna with conservation value”.

Peter Richards

KENT, UK