Enforcement of Mepa rules

Marie Louise Coleiro Preca and Michael Briguglio deserve to be thanked publicly for taking up the cudgels over breaches in construction site laws and regulations especially during the summer months in tourism zones, in The Times recently.

It is a well-known fact that in Sliema, a tourist zone, noisy digging, demolition, excavation works and loud construction practices are not allowed by law during the summer months up to September 30. Neither does Mepa allow the use of electric stone-cutting machines on pavements, carelessly never swept clean, or the storing of large mounds of sand in open-air places for the strong winds to wreak havoc... to the consternation of neighbours. It appears that Mepa's Enforcement Unit, despite being informed, can only sit on its haunches.

For example, Mepa decreed in a PA permit that all, repeat all, roof structures should be constructed in local stone, to no avail. There is no doubt that the registered small developer and his hirelings understand English, but it seems that Mepa's Enforcement Unit does not. More than 90 per cent of these roof structures, and there were many, were constructed, contrary to Mepa's instructions, in cement bricks. Is this Mepa's reformed modus operandi?