In July 2015 Malta’s Strategic Plan for Environment and Development [SPED] was published. The SPED was to replace the Structure Plan that had been the adopted overarching guiding policy on land-use planning in Malta and Gozo since 1992.

According to the document, the aim of the new strategy was to provide ‘a long term spatial strategy for the environment and development’, which ‘shall regulate the sustainable management of land and sea resources’.

The document is not particularly extensive. This surprised many at the time it was published, especially since it was meant to have a broader scope than the original strategy it was replacing, given that the Structure Planwas limited to land-use whereas the SPED was meant to be considering land-use in relation to socio-economic as well as environmental challenges. The SPED seemed more like the introduction to the strategic plan rather than the actual strategic plan itself.

Still, the document published in 2015 was to essentially serve as ‘the primary basis for decisions onall development and environmental permit applications’in order to achieve the ‘vision’ that the document sets out for different land typologies in Malta and Gozo.

In the SPED’s vision for rural areas, the livelihood of farming communities would be sustained ‘through modernisation of agricultural practices and diversification of compatible rural activities’. These localities would ‘remain a place where people can escape from daily urban life’, would be ‘visually pleasant and richinbiodiversity’ and finally, ‘shall become better green lungswith less buildings and dereliction, more accessibleand more resilienttothe impacts of climate change’.

For urban areas, the strategic plan envisages‘an attractive place for people to live, work, play and interact’. The urban area would be ‘clean, pollution free, safe, green, distinct, evoke a sense of openness, energy efficient and generate energy from micro-renewable Infrastructure’. The historic village cores would be ‘vibrant and their townscapes harmonious’. Town centres would support ‘economically dynamic urban hubs and walk-able neighbourhoods with clusters of local facilities’.

The SPED of course acknowledges challenges, in particular, that ‘Malta's cultural landscape is threatened by the extent of built up area, industrial and coastal development, taller buildings on urban fringes that obstruct views of historic centres, modern agricultural practices, increased vehicular access, litter, poor standards of design and workmanship, and lack of maintenance’.

So, four years on, how effective has the SPED been at overcoming these challenges and achievingthe positive vision it lays outfor the Maltese Islands?

Well, since the implementation of the strategic plan, Maltese villages and towns seem to have become more chaotic, less harmonious, more polluted and definitely not greener.Town centres are sadly even more unsafe and unwalkable as traffic in urban cores increasesand cars are constantly prioritized over pedestrians and cyclists.

Since 2015, as the number of motor vehicles on the road increased, the amount of space dedicated to these vehicles (as is evident from the current road-widening mania) has also increased, of course leading to less open space available for people. The situation is further exasperated as increased cars increases demand for parking spaces, meaning even more land is lost.

Urban areas are also feeling a lot more confined than they used to with hundreds of properties having been demolished and replaced with taller buildings over these past few years alone. Gardens, contributing to a sense of openness as well as serving as green lungs in village centres, have also been lost to development and replaced with more buildings. The unprecedented rate of change has left many localities deprived of their charm and residents robbed of their general way of life.

The character and nature of rural areas has also been compromised asmore and more requests for villas in the countryside and new ‘agricultural stores’ are being approved, despite their legitimate need being highly questionable (given that many people applying for these buildings are not in fact registered farmers). All this has led to more buildings in the rural area and increasing pressure on farmers to move out as farming simply becomes harder to sustain.

So, if this is all the outcome of SPED, it is safe to say that four years down the line the strategic plan has failed. The coming year, 2020, is the first year of review of the strategic plan. Will the analysis on the efficacy of the SPED, presented to us by the authorities, reflect what we are actually seeing around us? Or will it just be more of the same drivel we have come to expect?

Tara Cassar is an architect focusing on planning policies and environmental issues related to land-use, active with a number of local eNGOs.

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