[attach id=426152 size="medium"]This map of part of Marsascala shows the area allocated by the local plan for a natural park in green (including the striped areas). The proposed site of the American University is yellow and the natural park proposed by the government is red.[/attach]

Since the first week of May, information about the American University of Malta has been gradually trickling out to the public.

At the initial announcement, the Prime Minister indicated that a natural park would also be set up in the vicinity of this university.

Although this was cheekily presented as a ‘compromise’ between developers and environmentalists, many immediately realised that the natural park was there just to sweeten the fact that outside development zone boundaries would once again be twisted for this special investor.

To really understand what is happening, though, one would do well to look at the local plan for the south of Malta, in particular the Marsascala north plan.

This local plan allocates a huge swathe of countryside for a national park. This means that the park, which is being proposed by the government, is not a concession to the people of Malta but is something that is already provided for by the local plan.

Moreover, the government is not declaring all of the area identified by the local plan as a natural park but will only be allocating part of this land for this purpose.

The American University of Malta will be situated on land that the local plan in fact allocates to a natural park

What will happen to the extra land? Is there a plan for it to be released for speculative purposes in the future? Whatever the case, the Maltese people are not getting as good a deal as provided for by the local plan.

Even worse is what we discover when overlaying the site of the American University of Malta (as revealed in Times of Malta on May 10) on the local plan.

We then realise that the university will be situated on land that the local plan in fact allocates to a natural park.

Thus, not only is the natural park not a compensation for building the university on ODZ land, but the development itself will be unfolding on land which the local plan already allocates to a natural park.

The situation is a very disappointing one. While the Maltese people are being cheated out of parts of the natural park, which the local plan provides for them, everything is being presented as if this was a real conquest for our environment.

This is hardly an honest way to relate to the citizens of this country, especially regarding a project already surrounded by what an unkind soul would deliberately call misleading information.

Ingram Bondin is secretary of the Ramblers’ Association of Malta.