Only 15 illegal buildings demolished in a year

Labour MP Roderick Galdes said yesterday the enforcement unit within Mepa needed to be given more importance and resources. It was unacceptable, he said, that only 15 illegal buildings were demolished in the past year.

Mr Galdes was speaking during the debate in parliament on the Mepa financial estimates. He said that although he was a Mepa employee, he had a right to comment as an MP, but he was being careful not to have a conflict of interest.

Referring to the authority's spending, Mr Galdes said it was worrying that 10 per cent of decisions by the authority were being overturned on appeal, and one should study why this was happening.

The Labour MP suggested that planners should be issued with a warrant. He asked whether Mepa would be giving less importance to the training of its staff, with funding for this sector being reduced for next year.

He also referred to the recent artificial reef project off St Julian's, saying that while this project was good in principle, since there was a lack of funds, the funds used in this project could have been better used in more visible projects which could have been enjoyed by a greater number of people.

Mr Galdes asked what had happened to the drawing up of the local plans. The fact that many were still pending had left several localities in a state of uncertainty. Clearly, more resources should be allocated for this process to draw to a close.

He said the processing of development applications was too bureaucratic and the people were right to complain. A review was needed because there were clearly areas were delays could be reduced, such as during the consultation stage.

Mr Galdes said Mepa was right to start using biodiesel for its vehicles. But it also needed to cut down on the exaggerated use of paper.

He said he could not understand how several employees, including managers, no longer had access to the internet. The internet was a useful tool, and denying access to the workers was discriminatory.

He wondered who was the architect responsible for the newly built offices of the appeals board because the work was shoddy. The roof was leaking and rainwater flowed from the road into the offices, he said. Indeed, couldn't the board have utilised a vacant building instead of building new offices right by the bastions?

Mr Galdes asked what controls were in place to prevent leakage of sensitive information from the authority which could benefit the competitors of those seeking a development application. He said some Mepa officials were seeking commercial information from permit applicants which was not strictly required, leading one to wonder why such information was requested.

As part of environment impact assessments, Mepa officials were requiring applicants to seek services provided by companies where those officials had been employed. Wasn't this conflict of interest?

Furthermore, a number of members of the Development Control Commission had also continued to work as architects. When development applications by their clients came before the commission, these people walked out.

But it was surely embarrassing for the other DCC members to reject applications sought by their colleagues.

Concluding, Mr Galdes said the authority should not commission expensive reports which were then shelved. It recently commissioned a report on land reclamation from the same company which drew up the waste strategy report, which was not used.