A hole in one or a miss as near as a mile?

I cannot help feeling very sorry for Angelo Xuereb. Over the years he has proposed a number of innovative development schemes that by and large would beautify and improve our island, all of which are, for reasons that are sometimes hard to fathom, thrown out.

While the Malta Environment and Planning Authority, for the umpteenth time, stymied his latest amended proposal, that of having a golf course in the lowlands underneath what used to be Grand Hotel Verdala, the Prime Minister is demanding the creation of no fewer than two new golf courses, one in Malta and the other in Gozo, in the hope that these courses would attract visitors with higher spending power than the sausage and mash types that frequent us at present. Mepa has been asked to propose two "uncontroversial" sites for them. This may sound excessive, however, if one stops to assess the cockeyed development of tourism over the past decades, one will realise that the situation is totally dysfunctional and this is why the PM seems to be clutching at straws in a last ditch attempt to rectify the impending disaster.

I am not a golfer. The game is a total mystery to me. Friends of mine who play appear to be perfectly satisfied with the Marsa golf course and never before have I heard it mooted that the demand to play golf was so high that no fewer than three courses would be needed in a tiny country like ours. All I know is that a golf course requires far more surface area than a tennis court or even a polo field for that matter and, as we all know, space in Malta is at a premium.

Speaking of polo, Malta boasts of having the oldest polo club in Europe. Polo is the sport of kings, plutocrats and maharajahs and would render far more to our dwindling exchequer per capita than cohorts of golfers. Therefore, I expect a top-notch polo-related proposal to be next on the agenda, to be, excuse the pun Mr Xuereb, axed unceremoniously by Mepa.

Most people who are rabidly against Mr Xuereb's proposal say that the creation of a golf course in that particular area would ruin the uniquely Mediterranean environment. If what they mean is crumbling rubble walls, lunar landscape roads and piles of rubbish, they may as well think again. The Maltese countryside may have once been beautiful, however, total insensitivity, neglect and greed have rendered it utterly charmless. Drive through the designated area and apart from the couple of wayside chapels and farmhouses you will also experience a sense of arid dustiness that is equalled in few other places in Malta.

If by some fluke Mr Xuereb's golf course is allowed to materialise at least the development will be one that guarantees that an entire patch of hitherto semi-neglected land will be well looked after and, above all, Green with a capital G; all the year round too! While former deserts like Israel and Dubai tend to look like Ireland, Malta and its army of so-called gardeners do their utmost to chop down trees when purporting to prune them, more often than not reducing them to obscene stumps. The Green element is totally lacking and despite the PR efforts of private entrepreneurs like Peter Calamatta, Malta still largely resembles the barren rock Bosio lugubriously reported about 500 years ago.

Of late, the president of Din L-Art Helwa spoke about the uglification of Malta. There are so many people, myself included, who agree with every word he says. Despite this, the uglification process goes on unabated and this is why I am in favour of Mr Xuereb's golf course materialising rather than yet another so-called 5-star hotel or huge block of apartments.

A couple of years ago Mr Xuereb also proposed a very bold scheme to link up St Julians, Sliema, Valletta and the Three Cities by means of an underground tunnel. This would eliminate the evils of having far too many cars on the road along with belching buses and the inevitable traffic jams. It would also cut down by half the Valletta parking problem and bring the Cottonera area out of its cultural isolation into the mainstream. While most people regarded this idea as a pie in the sky, the benefits for the environment are infinite. Vehicular traffic, always on the increase, has caused untold harm to our environment. Valletta should eventually be traffic free as befits a 16th century city, while the Cottonera area, which although so close is yet so far as one must circumnavigate the entire harbour area to get there, will experience a much-needed cultural renaissance.

Should the golf course materialise and the basic character of the landscape be respected, I see absolutely nothing wrong with it. I feel that the underlying reasons for this flat refusal have little or nothing to do with the preservation of the environment but are all somehow linked to precisely who will be making money out of what! Maybe this time the environmentalists are being used.

Mr Xuereb is one of the very few entrepreneurs who are members of Din L-Art Helwa and although in the past his projects may have had a negative impact on the environment he has long recognised that working in isolation and creating little enclaves of ugliness is not, in the long run, going to do anything to enhance the Malta and Gozo ambience and persisting in doing so is tantamount to digging one's own grave. In this he has proved to be a man of vision. We have over the past 40 years transformed a dignified and attractive island into a concrete jungle. Now that a contractor like Anglu Xuereb is proposing something that could actually beautify the area, we are all agog to throw it out.

As the Sliema and St Julians areas increase their tower blocks and gradually come to resemble New York gone wrong, the least we could do is make an effort to preserve our rural areas, which are being eroded day by day with more buildings of dubious architectural merit. There is now no rural area that separates Mosta from Naxxar for instance. One can drive and drive and still be passing through unmistakeable, unattractive suburbia!

A couple of weeks ago Claire Bonello wrote about our ever-shrinking countryside and how it has been appropriated or misappropriated for private use leaving anyone who wishes to perambulate in the dwindling fresh air feeling like a ball in one of those pinball machines; flipped off course at practically every turn by notices of Private and Keep Out spelled in varying degrees of fantasy.

As I write the echo of a jackhammer is clearly being heard in Wied Ghomor and yet another bay-windowed house on Tower Road has bitten the dust. There are now just two left; one of which used to be the former Adelaide Hotel, and they have a Mepa notice on them that I dare not read.

As our population increased and affluence along with it, this over-development was inevitable. The tragedy is that it was unchecked for so long. Couple this with the timidity of all post-war governments to review the rent laws and the result is the utter mayhem we have on our hands today. My nightmare is that some day in the near future, when the sausage and mash brigades become more discerning and find another more congenial destination, our touristic gravy train will dry up and then what shall we do? Continue to open more and more language schools? I cannot imagine hordes of 16-year-olds staying in 5-star hotels. Can you?