The Delimara peninsula, comprising one of Malta’s few unspoilt remaining scenic coastlines, has long been notorious for being part of the trappers’ and hunters’ Wild West.

There is now blatant evidence that it is rapidly being taken over by another group, the likes of whom we have already experienced at Armier, St Thomas Bay, Dwejra and other parts of the scenic coastline. Rapacious land-grabbers build themselves illegal so-called ‘boathouses’ (unsightly shacks) anywhere they can get away with it, thus taking illegal possession of public land.

This group has now established itself at all the best coastal spots in Delimara. They must be stopped before this government – like other supine Nationalist and Labour governments before it – allows the theft of public land to proceed and squatters’ rights become established.

Is there the political will to act?

A few weeks ago, The Sunday Times of Malta published an aerial photograph of the Delimara peninsula, showing vividly where the illegal structures are located. These stretch from Il-Kalanka bay, opposite Fort Delimara, to the area of St Peter’s Pool. One part in between has become a private inlet on the sea, closed off to any wandering member of the public by aggressive guard dogs.

A ramshackle collection of illegal ‘boathouses’ stretches all the way from the southern-most tip of the peninsula to beyond St Peter’s Pool. Indeed, here two illegal developments have been extended into ‘villas’ and one enterprising inhabitant has turned one of his fields into a paying car park.

None of this is legal. It constitutes the theft of public land belonging to all Maltese, not the group of people – most of whom would not hesitate to intimidate those who get too close to what they now regard as belonging to them. The rule of law is daily being flouted and, until our sister newspaper drew attention to it, no action to prevent abuse was being taken.

It is gratifying to report, therefore, that an enforcement notice has recently been served by the Planning Authority on the owner of the field at St Peter’s Pool, who was using it commercially as a car park and has built illegal rooms selling drinks and other services. No permission was sought for any of these developments. The owner faces at least eight infringements of planning laws.

While the Planning Authority is to be commended on this action, it cannot be allowed to stop there. The lesson from every other instance of illegal acquisition of public land along Malta’s coastline of the last 30 years is that, unless prompt and determined action is taken early, the island’s sclerotic enforcement regime and the administrative inertia of the Planning Authority will ensure that the ‘boathouse’ owners get away with it. The government of the day becomes complicit through its inaction in the illegal abuse and, before long, finds itself acquiescing in the perpetrators’ crime, as has been the lesson at Armier, St Thomas Bay and elsewhere.

The only language which those who have committed this latest series of thefts of public land understand is that of determined and unrelenting enforcement. The Prime Minister has long boasted that he runs a government which is not afraid to take the tough but necessary decisions whenever these present themselves. At Delimara, he has the opportunity to demonstrate he has the political will to protect the environment and to uphold the rule of law.

The Planning Authority should move in immediately with bulldozers and clear the peninsula of these blots on the landscape wherever they exist.