Fort San Salvatore in Kalkara, handed by former prime minister Dom Mintoff to his brother and four others, would be a boutique hotel today if Malta Developers Association president Sandro Chetcuti had his way.

Mr Chetcuti has had a promise of sale agreement on the fort for some eight years. He told Times of Malta he had put together a consortium with investors interested in the south to transform the “disturbed environment” in the historical fort into a “tourist attraction”.

Yet the former Nationalist administration would not give him the guarantee he was looking for that the fort would not be expropriated and returned to the people. In Mr Chetcuti’s words, this was “an obstacle” to his project and he was no longer interested in the site.

Still, he remains a signatory on the promise of sale agreement because the case ended up in court over “technicalities”, Mr Chetcuti said, adding it was a pity his original effort never bore fruit.

Read more in the Times of Malta.