The highly controversial permit for flats in a two-floor residential and villa area in Lija has met with universal disapproval except from those who stand to make a profit by it.

The residents and neighbours are rightly incensed and are collecting funds to block the permit. It is pathetic to have to see the minnows fighting the ogres.

As Heraclitus said: “The problem of human society is to combine that degree of liberty without which law is tyranny with that degree of law without which liberty becomes license.”

As a retired planner I feel that town planning has been put in a bad light. In my lecturing days I used to try and lighten the atmosphere by saying that a ‘scheme’ to produce the maximum number of ‘plots’ had a sinister connotation.

One could almost borrow from George Bernard Shaw’s The Doctor’s Dilemma the dictum: “Ours is not a profession, ours is a conspiracy”. Straws in the wind seem to add weight to the suspicion.

A lot of opposition has also been raised by the proposal to build high-rise in Mrieħel.

Fair enough. But one has to keep in mind that an elephant on the horizon is less obnoxious than a mouse in the living room.

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