Environment group welcomes proposed amendments

Flimkien ghal Ambjent Ahjar has welcomed the new proposals to amend the Development Planning Act.

The NGO said that the changes would hopefully result in a new chapter for the Malta Environment and Planning Authority (Mepa) "up until now a dysfunctional and powerless enforcement arm".

The new scheme will entail monitoring of any ODZ constructions through detailed and continuously updated aerial photography of the islands, a strategy already proposed by Environment Minister George Pullicino last year in Cabinet but which did not gain sufficient backing among MPs at that time, the NGO said.

"FAA therefore cannot fail to be pleased at this significant change of heart at Cabinet level last week when the scheme was finally given the green light," it said.

The strategy will see swifter execution of enforcement orders by Mepa, a 10-fold increase in fines to nearly €23,000 for any illegal development and an Appeals Board specifically set up for pre-May enforcement orders.

These amendments will certainly be welcomed by all law abiding citizens, FAA said.

Now that the issue of illegal development is being addressed, FAA called for a similar review of the approval procedures for major projects being planned Out of Development Zone, especially the new EIA amendments which make it easier to build such structures legally in what little is left of the countryside or unbuilt shoreline, the organisation said.