It has become a bad habit to erect monolithic five-storey or seven-storey apartments while dropping a two-storey house in places like Swieqi.

Surely, this steady trend is spoiling our environment and turning it into an overcrowded ambience, with more using up precious parking places.

This is not a positive trend. It is a retrograde trend. The Sliema-St Julian’s-Swieqi area is being spoilt by these high-rise buildings and overcrowding is getting ever worse.

Our island has a problem of overcrowding and I wonder what the solution to this and to land speculation is.

A conference on this issue may be in order, to halt the spoiling of our urban and rural environments. Otherwise, aren’t we being a bit short-sighted?

And is this the environment we are going to bequeath to our next generations?

Din l-art ħelwa, meaning this fair land, is disappearing at an alarming rate and we have lost all sense of harmony and beauty to feast our eyes.