Construction tycoons Charles and Paul Polidano have been clearing part of an illegal depot they had built at the back of their headquarters in Ħal Farruġ, The Sunday Times has learnt.
Earlier in the week, trucks and bulldozers were back at the site that has seen repeated illegal development over the past years.
However, a spokesman for the Malta Environment and Planning Authority said the work is in line with instructions laid out in several enforcement notices slapped on the developers over the years.
This latest development comes after The Sunday Times revealed last month that Charles Polidano, known as iċ-Ċaqnu, and his brother Paul, had yet again defied Mepa’s stop notices and resumed with illegal construction on the site a few days before the general election.
Just four months earlier, the authority had stopped illegal works on two huge outdoor storage depots that were developed by dumping hundreds of tons of rubble on to the fields behind the company’s main building and building of a concrete warehouse, over hundreds of square metres of land.
The pattern of illegal works follows a practice adopted successfully by the developers over the past 20 years or so, through which they first build illegally and then seek to sanction the structures.
Since The Sunday Times story on March 17, the developers have been served with a court summons instigated by Mepa over the illegal works and were also told to start clearing the area.
A spokesman for Mepa that the works carried out in the past days were being monitored and mostly consisted of removing and shifting inert material to create access for machinery, which would be able to load junk and equipment stored at the site.
“The authority warned the developer that should any illegal works resume on site, the place will once again be sealed off with concrete blocks, resulting in disruptions to the operation of his other permitted development. The authority will conduct further inspections in the coming days,” the spokesman said.
55
the number of active enforcement notices covering the company’s illegal development
The brothers have been at the heart of controversy over environmental abuses for some two decades, during which they were the target of at least two major inquiry reports, which both lambasted Mepa for the way it handled the developers.
They face 55 active enforcement notices covering illegal development undertaken during this period.
The infringements, which span between 1994 and last year, cover more than 35 different sites around Malta, including six hard stone quarries, some of which were the site of illegal dumping.