Remember the last big environment street protest in 2006? Then, Baħrija's politically scalding Outside Development Zone villa pushed Malta's civic conscience out onto the streets and down into the valley of shame last June. If nothing changes, protestors are ready to take to the streets again.

At a well-attended forum last week held by Flimkien għal Ambjent Aħjar, Friends of the Earth and the Ramblers Association (RAM), the Malta Environment and Planning Authority was described as an old toothless dog.

The panel, chaired by RAM president Lino Bugeja, went straight to the point. The three environment groups questioned how building works at a development could be allowed to go on when it was under appeal. Like ordering a stay of execution after a hanging, once damaged, the environment cannot be brought back from the dead.

Examples listed were said to be "just a few of the abuses" going on despite promises of Mepa reform, which is supposed to be underway.

Speaking on the panel, Mepa auditor Joseph Falzon compared instances of meetings held "behind closed doors" followed by the issuing of permits, to a goal being allowed after a private meeting between the referee and head of the football club. Putting it another way, the auditor compared the situation to "a judge sending for the jury and dismissing the case".

Mr Falzon referred to the number of cases where crucial files on developments had gone missing.

He claimed that it had become something of a tradition for files to be "lost" at Mepa. In other cases it appeared the files could have been passed on to architects which may even have led to objectors being persecuted.

Applications at Ta' Baldu are among developments being approved against the advice of the heritage advisory committee. With architects deftly working the loopholes in planning law, structures outside the development zone are being approved on the premise of stables. A member of the panel remarked that we now have enough 'stables' to replace Malta's car fleet with horses.

Manipulation of local plans to allow actions such as the demolition of the Knights' armoury in Qormi was another sore point. In this case it seems an Urban Conservation Area boundary was redrawn so that the oldest and most noble building could be 'deleted' from the protected area.

While the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage called for Mepa to grant an emergency conservation order in the face of imminent risk, the authority's Development Control Commission issued the order to demolish the historic building.

FAA claimed that in the architect's description of the building certain noteworthy features were overlooked, adding that there was a tendency of lack of information to be supplied to Mepa before buildings were torn down.

A provision in the planning law allows for a permit to be revoked if applicants and their architects are economical with the truth. Nationalist Party former president Victor Scerri's statement that he "can do what he likes on his own land" jarred with the subtle wording of the planning application, indicating a proposal to reconstruct a farmhouse with very minor alterations.

Alex Vella of RAM asked, "Could there be a more false declaration than this?"

He said it is unclear how works are being allowed to continue without the necessary method statement being supplied to Mepa.

The ramblers described how country walks were now being constrained to corridors between rubble walls whose height had been raised illegally, such as at Wied Liemu. A justification provided by Mepa was that such walls could be as high as the highest point of soil anywhere on the site.

On another note, widely publicised restoration of the medieval site at Simblija has fallen into sad neglect. The site now lies abandoned with vandalised information boards.

Several questions persist about the Mistra site owned by a politician.

An inquest over the building of a supermarket on agricultural land, where the civil aviation authorities had filed an objection and the previous owner had sold after failure to gain permits, found that Mepa failed to notice what the DCC was up to.

The obligation to give planning reasons when policies are overturned is not being observed to the letter. It seems any old excuse will do and no one is checking.

Choosing the cheapest and dirtiest oil to run the Delimara power station was also critised.

Prof. Edward Mallia from Friends of the Earth noted that there were already many problems with the abbatoir incinerator after it had been adapted to take clinical waste. Shutting down the incinerator seemed to have coincided with efforts to comply on EU limits for black dust, he mused.

Dr Victor Axiak, representing the Church Environment Commission, asked how the environment could be protected when politicians were poorly trained about the risks to ecology, such as sewage overflows in a protected area of Gozo.

Since Mepa largely lacks the resources to back up its own protective legislation, rather than making it a self-funding body, it could be run more as a social service which promotes the common good. Dr Axiak's own environment assessments come with a condition to the developer to print the reports unabridged so that no information is shielded from public view.

Paul Pace of the Centre for Environmental Education and Research noted that people generally were not against controls but they did object to injustices in controls.

Mepa chairman Austin Walker, who was among the audience, protested against any suggestions of corruption within the authority made during the discussion.

Referring to a shift in zoning at Ħondoq ir-Rummien, local councillor Paul Buttigieg placed the responsibility on the tourism authority.

At end of the forum, which was attended by several mayors and local councillors, the panel resolved to take to the streets in another national protest should there be no sign of improvement at Mepa by January.