The scheduled removal of a Valletta cafe overlooking Grand Harbour is set to be put on ice as the planning authority considers an 11th-hour claim that a development permit was based on incorrect information.
Café Deux Baronnes owner Martin Baron yesterday said he had uncovered proof that a stone structure ostensibly built on the grounds currently occupied by his cafe was “never there in the first place”.
The site, which sits alongside Upper Barrakka’s saluting battery and has breathtaking views of Grand Harbour, is believed to have previously housed a structure serving as the Master Gunner’s quarters. The structure was felled by wartime bombing.
Heritage NGO Fondazzjoni Wirt Artna wants to build a replica of the building and close off the area, turning it into part of a paid-for historical attraction encompassing the saluting battery and Lascaris war rooms. The NGO’s proposals were approved by the planning authority some weeks ago, with eight votes in favour and five against. Mr Baron has appealed the decision. The Land Department subsequently told Mr Baron he had until tomorrow to pack up and leave.
But Mr Baron yesterday said the planning authority had been completely misled all along.
“The permit was given on the premise that the site housed the Master Gunner’s quarters, which anyway had absolutely no historical value. But we now know they were never even here in the first place. They were actually a storey below,” he said as he pointed to St Anthony’s square below.
Mr Baron said he had unearthed historical plans from the National Archive dating back to the wartime period which showed the area marked as civilian – rather than British army – property.
Furthermore, a surveyor had confirmed that the original Master Gunner’s quarters’ dimensions tallied perfectly with the foundation markings in the site below, “right down to an eight-inch gulley”.
Fondazzjoni Wirt Artna chairman Mario Farrugia was unperturbed by the turn of events. “The Master Gunner’s Quarters have always stood at the entrance of the saluting battery, since the Master Gunner had to be on site all the time. When the site is cleared we will show that the original foundations are still there under the present modern surface,” he said.
Mr Farrugia argued that the site in St Anthony’s square which Mr Baron had measured had previously been a guard room that had nothing to do with the old Master Gunner’s quarters.
A Mepa board will now have to consider Mr Baron’s claim that the development permit issued was based on incorrect and misleading information. If the claim is successful, the permit will be revoked.
And while the issue is thrashed out, the two parties are unlikely to be exchanging pleasantries: Mr Baron’s appeal to Mepa claims that Mr Farrugia’s original application is tantamount to “fraud” while Mr Farrugia, in turn, said Mr Baron was being helped by “a number of hidden hands, some in very high places”.