It is ironic that while His Holiness the Pope has deemed it fit to honour the Augustinian Order in Malta by bestowing the cardinal’s hat on one of its friars, the Malta Environment and Planning Authority has disappointed the same Augustianian Order by throwing out its request to build a new primary school for Maltese children. On the pretext put forward by the case officer, that the design and height were unacceptable, a €20 million project planned by the Church to expand five of its schools has been made to suffer a setback.

With all due respect, such a brusque decision by Mepa, which involves a building of a school, makes one think. There are only a few reasons for such a decision but one can only come to one conclusion, namely that objections put forward may have had a tinge of personal discomfort. I found the reasoning in the report of the case officer – that the proposed building is very modern in design and that the height would also be in conspicuous contrast to the surrounding scheduled buildings – to be quite an awkward one. A school is a particular building and it could afford to be modern in design and higher than the adjacent buildings. Architects and foundations boast about the design of modern schools.

I also feel that the objections with respect to lack of parking spaces put forward by a number of objectors, who pointed out that the area was already suffering from a shortage, were quite fickle and egoistic. To cap it all, the report of the case officer pointing out that the “need for a school did not justify the intensification of the development in a very restricted site”, just toppled the priority of values. The need to build a school is surely a matter of great importance and people in the neighbourhood should surely understand that it should be a matter of great priority.