There is something weirdly surreal in the statement “Townhouse to be converted into three-storey car park” (‘Grandchildren join fight to save Gozo townhouse’, April 27). Such Monty Pythonesque absurdity takes some beating.

That this beautiful building is owned by the Cathedral Chapter makes the proposal all the more outrageous.

The ecclesiastics seem to have done their best to tug at our heartstrings by feeding us with sanctimonious excuses to disguise the commercial undertones of the affair.

The cathedral is situated atop a hill and, it was reasoned, “a car park is needed to make it easier for the faithful to access it”, as though the Creator had invented the car specifically to convey the faithful to church services.

The project, we are told, will “give autonomy to those with mobility issues who wanted to access the parish”.

But surely all that is needed for this (if not already there) is a suitable number of properly-sited parking slots reserved for the disabled.

The architect also pitched in with the desperate excuse that “the authorities had been speaking of a park-and-ride facility for years’’. It was concluded that “the parish therefore needed to act”.

This example epitomises beautifully our excellence at exploitation of our architectural heritage in the pursuit of wealth, systematically transforming our beautiful islands into a traffic-infested concrete wasteland.

Is it possible that it has escaped the Cathedral Chapter that our urban roads are unable to accommodate more traffic? That adding parking space simply attracts more car traffic into the city centre? That this means more ugly urban congestion? That increased traffic creates more deadly urban pollution for everybody to inhale? That people will walk even less, which is unhealthy?

Finally, can somebody reassure us, handon-heart truthfully, that commercial pressure is not the main impetus for this car park?