Frankly it has become quite tiring. Nearly every day we wake up to news of some new application for some ridiculously gargantuan development, either smack bang in the middle of a quant town, upsetting anything and everything the residents ever knew, or even on ODZ land, which some people think is infinite.

Applications in the past years, statistics tell us, have exploded in numbers. This is obviously the result of a booming economy, which naturally has its laudable side to it, but this comes with its own difficulties.

People feel that the environment they live in, and here I don’t only mean the countryside or the air quality, is constantly under attack. It feels like a military operation, intended to ware down the opponent through constant and coordinated attacks.

Nowhere is sacred enough. We have seen applications coming in for behemoth developments in all places and we can only hold our breath and guess what is coming tomorrow.

Memory of how the last remaining unspoilt piece of shoreline in the south of the island was going to be given up at a pittance, to house the most questionable of projects, is still fresh in everyone’s minds. The huge stretch of land in Zonqor, Marsascala has since been released from the agreement after unprecedented public uproar, but the Maltese public had to give up some newly restored excellent prime location, historical edifices in the up-and-coming Cospicua waterfront in return.

The ancient city of Mdina, and its iconic skyline, was also under very real threat up until this month, with an application to turn a nightclub into a five-star hotel. Thankfully the application was revoked at appeal citing inconsistency with the local plan. Did we have to get to this point though? Wasn’t it clearly obvious to everyone from the very start?

Then there was the spectacularly obscene application for a development at a stone’s throw away from Ggantija Temples in Xaghra, Gozo. The development, which lies within the world heritage site’s buffer zone, was suspended earlier this month, pending a Heritage impact assessment requested by Unesco. That’s right, we now need a world heritage organisation to do our dirty work and shame us on the international stage.

Thankfully, these examples have been stopped in their tracks, but sadly many more were very successful with their process, and today we are stuck with unseeable ugly buildings and an overgrown urban sprawl.

First it was the fuel stations boom, requesting virgin ODZ land to build their cathedrals to the automobile – complete with eateries and all related amenities.  In a country that is planning on going carbon neutral in a relatively short while, it is mind-boggling to understand why we needed all these stations developed at every few metres from each other.

Then there were the supermarkets – one larger than the other, also rigorously on ODZ land. Our dedication to consumption is truly remarkable and if there is one thing we as Maltese really plan ahead for is having enough supplies to last us a lifetime or two.

And how can we forget the odd application to build over Neolithic period cart ruts? Or developments completely overshadowing some other historical building? This is not to mention the complete dismantling of our towns and villages’ character, pulling down entire streets of town houses to be replaced by ugly, uninspiring stacks of glass and concrete.

Unfortunately, the common folk in the street have started to feel helpless in front of this scourge. The game seems stacked and developers are the undisputed overlords who are not answerable to anything or anyone.

We cannot sit idly and see our country being torn down, one building, one heritage site at a time. We need to make our voices heard and make it clear to the political class that they are there to protect our heritage – starting with the character of our streets to the world heritage sites that attract thousands of tourists every year.