Environmental NGO ‘Flimkien ghal Ambjent Ahjar’ coordinator Astrid Vella – who has assiduously campaigned against many developments claiming they would harm the environment – was not willing to voice her opinion on the PL’s energy plans and effects such a project will have.
Contacted by The Malta Independent online for her views on the matter, Ms Vella said that the PL energy issue is far too technical and preferred to steer away from expressing herself on the impact such a project may have on the environment.
Ms Vella said that the FAA delves into planning, air quality and water-related issues. This particular issue is far too technical and “I am not qualified to give my take on the subject.”
She referred this publishing house to Dr Edward Mallia who, she said, is the person on whom the assosiation will rely for it to be able to give a detailed insight on the energy plans as proposed. Ms Vella underlined that FAA has similarly not commented about the Sargas project and wind turbine farms. She said that the projects FAA spoke about in public were not related to energy but to the environment and planning.
In the past, Ms Vella was very much in the forefront to express her opposition to several projects, both private and public, when these had an impact on the environment, some of them much smaller than what is being proposed by the Labour Party.
For example, the FAA, and Ms Vella in particular, had been totally against then PN president Victor Scerri’s private development on the Bahrija Valley floor which led to Dr Scerri resigning in order to “fight my case as a private citizen”.
The NGO had also stepped up pressure in 2011 objecting over a 2006 outline permit which formed the basis for the controversial full permit that was granted for a new filling station, Attard Petrol Station, outside the development zone in Mgarr which had actually expired.
Others cases included the proposed underground museum at St John's Co-Cathedral.
A petition had also been launched by the FAA against the plans and the building of a new Parliament on the site of the ruined Opera House in Valletta.
Despite FAA having expressed satisfaction at the government’s plans to regenerate Valletta and rebuild City Gate, it was highly critical of the specific proposals.
The FAA had also protested against a number of other projects including the Balluta car park, Ramla l-Hamra, Dwejra, Ta’ Cenc, Hondoq ir-Rummien, the Portomaso project, the development of residential units in Spinola, St Julian’s and the application for the construction of Lidl supermarket on unbuilt fields in Xewkija Valley.