At long last! After I had been arguing strongly on this tack for upwards of 10 years, the position which I and others had been holding – that long vacant and unutilised property should be the subject of fiscal or other measures – is now being accepted by several sources.

First it was the Prime Minister, now it is the Malta Developers Association, and others willno doubt be following, as they come round to no longer tolerating the whole rows of long vacant and unutilised properties in Sliema, Ħamrun, Birkirkara, Qawra and elsewhere.

Let me recap some of the things which I argued for, and which I had spelt out in detailed documents to both government and Opposition.

First the absolute need for a national cadastre of every single piece of property in Malta. The State absolutely needs to know who owns every square inch of these islands.

Second, with the EU blowing down the necks of all member states on their annual budgets,it was a case of when, notif, they would be coming at uson our national policies towards property ownership and this from the specific fiscal poten-tial viewpoint.

Thirdly, property hoarding (the MDA and estate agents euphemistically call it ‘investment’) must in tiny Malta simply be thrown out of the window.

Fourthly, we are now in such a big building mess in certain parts of the island (too many contractors competing like mad amongst themselves for work) that some whole towns or in-town areas must now simply be designated as “no further development areas”.

There are so many other reasons for a total change in the way the country has so far looked at this issue. But, it seems, some sort of start is on the way... and so along with many others I am elated, smug... and anxious, to see how it will all pan out in detail.