No less than six planning policies and guidelines are up for public consultation this month. Among them is a draft aimed at steering a demand for shooting ranges.

It is not only the shooting fraternity who have been waiting long years for clear standards with which to guide the development application process for shooting ranges. The need for planning guidance has been heightened by some dubious outfits operating over the years.

The planning authority received a number of comments on its draft planning guidance for civilian shoot­ing ranges. One was sent by a long-suffering neighbour living next to a makeshift range near the Archbishop’s Seminary at Tal-Virt

“The set-up looks very primitive and of a temporary nature and is hidden away from sight. This shooting range is frequented at all hours during weekends and the continuous noise of gun shots is deafening and very irritating. Our supposed days of rest have been shattered by this constant and very noisy inconvenience. Something surely needs to be done to lower the decibels of the noise emanating from this range. Moreover, the surrounding area (which is essentially rural) is completely covered with spent plastic gun shells.”

Range shooting started off in Malta with friendly shoots between servicemen stationed on the island and local enthusiasts. In 1978, in a flurry of urgency surrounding Malta’s budding status as host to a small-scale international sports shoot, the planning board granted a permit to a range at Bidnija on the edge of Qanotta Valley. There was subsequent disapproval by the planning authority over the range as a 1993 application to sanction failed to pass muster.

Disappointingly the Water Services Corporation voiced no objection to lead shot accumulating in the valley, and Enemalta even installed a trans­former to serve the range despite the planning irregularity.

The sport has been boosted by the hunting community, which is mostly interested in simple down-the-line shooting rather than the more complicated sort practised at Olympic level. A growing number of competition shooters take part in the sport all year round.

Yet, whenever hunting illegalities have led to a curtailing of the hunting season this has had a direct effect on shooting range clubs as their memberships soar. Conversely, when the hunting season opens, shooting at ranges has been seen to drop-off.

An earlier draft of planning guidelines for shooting ranges issued in 2006 noted that hunters only tend to revert to ranges when the season is closed or when bird migration is at a low ebb. This observation, which was submitted by the head of a shooting club, overturns the theory, much loved by prospective range promoters, that “potential benefits offered by range shooting include easing up pressure on wildlife”.

A political promise to identify a site for an international shooting range was made ahead of the 2013 elections. What followed was the Busbesija fiasco. A government call for expressions of interest jammed after the controversial range, proposed in fields behind Mount St Joseph retreat house, displayed a distinct absence of due diligence.

Nothing has been heard of the second project in line for Busbesija heights, an agri-tourism proposal. The bid to restore the military huts on the ridge as part of an enterprise compatible with the rural surroundings may have been nothing more than a charade, adding gun oil to the permit machine.

Meanwhile, the planning autho­rity’s supplementary planning guidance for civilian shooting ranges, issued in November 2015, is now open for public consultation, having been run past various interested parties for comments.

From an environmental perspective, objectives for planning policy guidance on shooting ranges set out in 2013 were based on several Structure Plan policies aimed at protecting valleys and ecologically important habitats and preventing adverse impact on areas of high landscape value.

Apparently, during internal consultations, a shooting enthusiast brazenly insisted that “the hands of the authorities should not be tied by policies of the existing Structure Plan”. This attitude re­flects a sense of entitlement that expects planning rules to recede like the Red Sea wherever it chooses to bulldoze.

A decision on the national shooting range is to be guided by a new policy context – the strategic plan for the environment and development which replaced the Structure Plan.

The new plan is described by the planning authority as being centred around sustainable development objectives while taking into account social and economic implications of land use planning decisions to consolidate a strategic land use planning policy.

In exceptional circumstances the authority will give due consideration to any proposals received for the development of a national shooting range complex- Planning authority supplementary planning guidance for civilian shooting ranges

As Malta’s laws were adapted to the issuing of gun licences for various forms of target shooting, the pressure for an international-standard shooting range increased.

The Malta Sport Shooting Federation appears at one point to have favoured a valley as the best setting for a future shooting range. A valley would provide shelter from the wind but it should be clear to anyone with sustainable development at heart that environmental protection constraints make valleys a non-starter for such developments. A quarry, on the other hand, seems a better option.

Shooting ranges are to be permitted on a regional basis, rather than on a local level, decrees the planning guideline. Small indoor ranges may be located in urban areas, such as the one granted a permit in the heart of Tigné last August.

But the scale of a national shooting range calls for a suitable location to be found outside the development zone. The planning authority recognises that the required footprint identified in the policy criteria is “considerably large”.

There has been the suggestion that the development could take place in a quarry, although a number of other locations are mooted in the guidance document. This is where it gets tricky:

Existing ranges holding the necessary permits are eligible, but none are large enough to meet the international shooting range criteria handed down by the experts. Military sites may also be considered although the military do not seem too keen on this, especially at Pembroke. As to a wider choice of locations, the planning guidance document prompts further possibilities:

“Sites in near proximity to a disused quarry” and “derelict land” – as long as the latter has not been the target of recent (intentional) dumping – are fair game. Expanding even further, bullet point number six under acceptable locations for outdoor ranges factually takes into regard the geographical constraints of the Maltese islands before dropping a bombshell:

“In exceptional circumstances the authority will give due consideration to any proposals received for the development of a national shooting range complex.”

What would comprise an exceptional circumstance? The island’s small size? Or our politicians’ tendency of making promises that has a contortionist planning authority bending every which way to keep?

Barring underground shooting ranges, all applications exceeding 150 square metres will be refused “unless the developer demonstrates to the authority’s satisfaction that larger structures are needed”.

Why set the bar high but then gift developers with an easy way to jump over all hurdles?

If sports enthusiasts have to travel abroad to practise whatever they are passionate about – be it shooting, car racing or winter sports – then we may yet hold on to our landscapes and endangered open spaces.

On an exceptionally small island with little room for such expansive projects the best location would be an abandoned quarry.

The guidance document for civilian shooting ranges also notes that the main negative impacts of range shooting – noise and fallen leadshot – often spill beyond site boundaries.

Poisoning of the aquifer by lead may not be an immediate concern for Malta as it is in other countries due to the acid balance of our soil. But a genuinely sustainable policy would protect the long-term health of the water table resource from any eventuality, such as increased acid rain and cumulative quantities of lead shot in the environment.

Denmark and the Netherlands have banned all use of lead shot, and it is banned in the UK’s coastal and wetland areas. As a replacement, the standard of steel shot cartridge has improved and provides an affordable non-toxic alternative.

The planning authority should not allow itself to be guided solely by information provided by shooters. The public can send comments on the document up to Friday.

http://steel-shot.com

http://mepa.org.mt/public-consultation