In his letter Planned Supermarket Outside Xewkija (February 14), George Debono criticises the recent Environment and Planning Commission’s decision to grant planning permission for the development of a large supermarket in Xewkija. He reaches the conclusion that, as a result, all small neighbourhood grocers, butchers and greengrocers will be wiped out.

A photograph was published with the letter of a corner grocer’s store in Sliema, which had closed down.

What the correspondent failed to say was that this grocer stopped operating quite a number of years ago, much before the likes of supermarkets such as Lidl were introduced to Malta.

Neither did he say that, within walking distance of this corner store, there are at least eight other small grocers, green grocers, butchers and mini markets.

It is inevitable that the opening of any new retail outlet, be it small or large, would impact a neighbouring competitor. Mepa’s competence in this regard is that planning policies and regulations are met.

In the case of the approved supermarket in Xewkija, the EPC was in favour of the application once the proposed development adhered to a number of conditions. These included being entirely built within the development boundaries in an area always designated for mixed use, all traffic management issues being approved by Transport Malta and the retail impact study clearly showing that the trade diverted to the supermarket would have no unacceptable impact on existing retail facilities in Victoria town centre.

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