Patrick Calleja’s articulate letter (‘Last chance to save rural area’, August 1) exemplified how once more an organ of the State (for the umpteenth time Mepa) has failed to live up to its mission and decided against the interests of the people for whose benefit it supposedly exists.

The authorities in question allowed an individual’s desire to cash in on arable land to trump the common good.

As emerges from Calleja’s letter, the Mepa directorate was willing to sacrifice not merely land but also logic to arrive atits decision.

Not only will more land and landscape be sacrificed for building units which (given the already saturated building market) Malta does not need, but the residents of the village will have to foot the aesthetic, psychological and logistic bill that will result from Mepa’s decision.

Għargħur is a traditional village whose characteristics Mepa undertook to protect, as evidenced by the document Calleja quoted. Though the village core has been by and large maintained, the skyline and outline are being systematically destroyed, the village being slowly encircled by what is to all intents and purposes a high-rise (given the characteristics of the village) belt of apartments.

Moreover, the project in question will create huge traffic and mobility problems, hence greater smog and psychological strains.

Villagers and their representatives should vociferously protest against this assault. The local council should clearly and publicly remonstrate against the decision; remonstrations behind closed-doors are worthless.

The inhabitants should also rally against the decision in any possible way.

For starters they might show politicians from both sides of the divide, who in the next weeks will come to the village for their feast-related publicity stunt, that their presence is not welcome.