Accusations on Hamrun site

Had Ms Sylvana Debono, MEPA's public relations officer, bothered to do her homework thoroughly before rushing to divert public opinion from the contents of that audit report, she would not have found the need to use such a transparent and predictable ploy as the issue of my dark, evil secret of the aluminium balcony (The Sunday Times, October 9).

The balcony is one of several scores in High Street, St Venera and Hamrun and adjacent side street corners, none of which, except for mine, have been served with an enforcement notice according to the MEPA Website and common village gossip.

Had she delved deep in the MEPA archives, she may have unearthed several years' worth of correspondence about the current, all important, national issue of my irregular balcony. Some of the correspondence dates to before 2003 and some after 2003, and some dated as recently as last June, coincidentally after we raised valid objections to PA/05495/02 that was given the green light just a month earlier.

Some of the correspondence dates even to a few weeks ago. Just in case the file has been misplaced again by MEPA, I invite her to view copies of the correspondence we have kept in our records.

This puerile diversion does nothing to detract from the main issue, which is the official sanctioning of the further desecration of irreplaceable underground heritage artefacts in the site covered by PA/05495/02 currently under way sporadically, even as we await the first hearing of the Appeals Board of objections made by my husband and myself as is our lawful right.

The fact that the Appeals board accepted our objections as valid and set a date for the first hearing does little to lend credence to the "conflict between neighbours" and "bickering" slurs thrown in for good measure at us by Ms Debono.

I would suggest to Ms Debono to inform herself on all the provisions of the Heritage Act and MEPA regulations regarding heritage, review all that was written in the Audit report that she is objecting to and check the ministerial replies to PQs 13137- 13140 about the consequences of excavating where underground heritage like shelters and cisterns are concerned. I will also refer her to MEPA's own conditions attached to the full development permit affixed to the entrance of the site.

MEPA is not the only entity monitoring and taking photographic evidence of the treatment being meted out to the irreplaceable wartime rock shelter that runs right across the site connecting (up to a few years ago until unauthorised excavation went on) our own underground shelter with the rest of the wartime shelter network underneath the rest of the block.

The 'before and after' photos shown in Ms Debono's press release focus only on the right part of the shelter. The left part, that features prominently in our set of photos as well as in some published by The Times last August and September, and that connected to the rest of the underground network is now buried under the rubble recovered from excavating right next to it.

Over that part of the shelter, the workman with the heavy machinery (not hand tools) is seen excavating in the MEPA photograph itself.