AX Holdings contests Planning Directorate's report

AX Holdings has written to the Malta Environment and Planning Authority's Planning Directorate, describing as riddled with shortcomings a report recommending a refusal of the Verdala golf course proposal.

The impact on landscape boils down to a matter of personal judgment, and the effects on agriculture and the farmers are far outweighed by the benefits that would accrue to the local area and to the country in general, AX Holdings' counter report claims.

The Planning Directorate has given the thumbs down to the Verdala golf course proposal, and the Mepa board is due to convene tomorrow to decide on it, one of the most controversial in years.

The proposal is to construct an 18-hole golf course, country club, ancillary facilities including tennis courts, swimming pool, car park, maintenance area, agricultural uses, pedestrian underpass and road junction at Mdina Road.

The proposal has been met with a chorus of disapproval from environmentalists who argue that the golf course is a non-starter.

AX Holdings said the Environment Impact Statement clearly showed that the plan made provisions to retain and enhance the sites of potential ecological importance.

No development is proposed in areas that compromise the key ecological areas, including the entire Saqqajja-Tal-Virtu escarpment and the riparian corridor of Wied il-Mofru.

AX Holdings said the loss of some rubble walls would be inevitable, though the dilapidated walls on the site would be repaired using stone reclaimed from those walls to be removed. In addition, a number of new rubble walls would be built.

The loss of 2,270 metres of rubble wall (mostly on the flat areas to the east of Triq il-Korsa) needed to be viewed against the reinstatement of the horizontally stratified walls on the slopes under Rabat, the construction of an additional 2,800 metres of wall on the course itself and an additional 5,700 metres around the vineyards.

Connection to electricity, telephones and sewers, if routed underground as intended, could also be achieved without detriment to the natural environment and visual amenities.

AX Holdings said many of the directorate's "cumulative impacts" were based on the impacts that the EIS declares to be insignificant and not requiring mitigation.

Others were based on impacts prior to mitigation measures, and some of the impacts (loss of water availability, ecological impact of aquifer pollution, reduction in agricultural employment) were not even considered to be impacts and have not been described in the EIS.

AX Holdings chairman Anglu Xuereb said the water required by the golf course would be equivalent to that used by three medium sized hotels.

To cope with this, the developers were planning to build a small underground reverse osmosis plant which would be able to purify drainage water.

In view of the wide dispersion of fields and the fact that a significant proportion of farmers did not live in the locality, the assertion of any form of community was difficult to sustain, he said.

Mr Xuereb claimed that 86 per cent of the farmers had accepted to give up the land. Besides, there was not one farmer who earned his living from the Verdala fields. Others who refused the offer were offered cash compensation. Additionally, farmers would be offered to turn to viticulture in an area earmarked for agricultural use.

"The loss of 50 hectares of agricultural land of variable quality, ignores the fact that in the event that the golf course fails, the land would be available to be converted to another form of agriculture," he said.

Mr Xuereb insisted that there would be no high rise buildings as was being suggested by the lobby groups "in order to mislead the public".

The only building would be the clubhouse that would be incorporated within the structure of the land.

"I did everything by the book. I provided Mepa with everything it needed - I commissioned experts to draw up the necessary studies. Let's hope the board is competent enough to realise its worth."

Nationalist MP Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando is strongly against the proposal to the extent that he even broached the issue in the Council of Europe in his capacity as chairman of the Maltese parliamentary delegation to the council.

He maintained that despite the proposed developer's claims, a lot of farmers would be affected by the proposed development and it would simply be unjust to destroy land that has been tilled by farmers for decades.

"It's bad enough that the Verdala Hotel has ruined the Mdina skyline - the last thing we need is more development in such a scenic spot."

Dr Pullicino Orlando clarified that though Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi recently emphasised the need for another golf course, the Prime Minister had not given any opinion about the one proposed for Rabat.

"I'm in favour of another golf course, but not the one proposed for Verdala. I'd be the first to drive a golf ball if a course is built on somewhere like Maghtab," he said.