Żminijietna – Voice of the Left classifies Mepa’s position in giving a green light for the demolition of Metropole Hotel in Dingli Street, Sliema and replacing it with a number of apartments, as a strange and ambiguous one.

As an organisation in favour of sustainable development, we cannot understand the justification behind this permit, when in other cases of controversial environmental concerns Mepa granted all permits, as in the cases of the extension of the Sea Bank Hotel and the Hilton Development. We, the people, were told that these permits were given with the premise that the tourism sector, economic growth and employment will benefit. Why was the same reasoning not applied in the case of the Metropole Hotel too?

This attitude, also shows a lack of serious planning on Mepa’s behalf since a number of applications for new hotels continue to be processed with disregard to the limitation of land in Malta.

The 2005 census revealed that from a total of 192,314 households in Malta and Gozo, 43,000 are empty dwellings. The locations of Sliema, Pembroke, St Julian’s and Gżira have the second highest rate of empty houses with the figure of 29%. These statistics surely do not justify the rationale behind this development..

Żminijietna believes that the use of land where the Metropole Hotel once stood should have retained the same function. The cases of Mistra Village, Les Lapins Hotel in Ta’ Xbiex and Mġarr Hotel in Gozo are in actual fact nothing more than a display of unsustainable planning and speculation.

■ David Pisani

Żminijietna