I refer to the report ‘Restaurant in Valetta refused following residents’ complaints’ (March 30) and highlight in particular the phrase “the application could have proceeded as the board was bound by consistency”.

This ‘consistency’ practice means that if, in the past, a permit was issued ‘in error’, and the intelligent reader needs no further cues, it would open the floodgates for innumerable other development applications falling under that particular category to be accepted on the basis of this ‘precedent’ and not, as common sense suggests, after a case by case thorough check.

Too often, lately, we have seen recommendations for refusal in Mepa case officers’ reports overturned by an EPC board quoting a “precedent” and rejecting all the reasoned and justified arguments contained in these reports as well as in objectors’ letters to the director of planning. These objectors, in particular, would know applicants and their misdemeanours well.

The public, thus, rightly wonders about the (golden?) weight of these ‘precedents’ put in the other side of the scales.

Will the recently-appointed Parliamentary Secretary for Planning and Simplification of Administrative Processes, Deborah Schembri, herself a lawyer and, therefore, well aware of the dangers in similar “precedents”, intervene so that we give law-abiding, tax-paying people the necessary protection?

She can start with the notorious oft-resorted-to Class 5A Casa Bottega applications, which, under the pretext of ‘harmless’ activities in domestic garages, unleash a deluge of nuisances in the form of car mechanics, panel beaters/sprayers, carpenters etc.

Schembri’s instructions to investigate thoroughly all Class 5A Casa Bottega permits issued since last year would earn her not only the plaudits of her erstwhile and I hope current voters but the appreciation of all people of integrity who yearn for good governance, civic values and ethical standards.