The planning authority has defended its decision to stop quarrying works in a Siġġiewi residential building site after the developer and the architect yesterday complained it was encouraging the depletion of limestone.

Architect Philip Mifsud, a Nationalist MP, and developer Anton Camilleri yesterday held a press conference on the building site of an apartment block just off the Siġġiewi main road.

There, the developers had opted to cut out blocks of limestone to be used in construction instead of digging into the stone and dumping the resulting rubble.

“It seems Mepa prefers waste to recycling,” Mr Camilleri said, as he showed reporters a pneumatic hammer at work.

Mepa had granted a permit allowing the developers to excavate material using the latest available equipment which would cut stone in large blocks and which would then be transported from the site to an authorised place “where several products from it can be manufactured”.

Once the developers realised the size of the blocks they were using was not feasible for export – they claim to have discovered only later that globiġerina limestone could not be exported – they started experimenting with different sizes of stone, Mr Mifsud said.

By early last year, the building site was turned into what Mepa called “an unregulated quarry”, where the developers started to cut and stone-dress the limestone using different machinery.

Residents had complained that the site was causing a major inconvenience and Mepa suspended works last May.

Later, the applicants asked Mepa to sanction the new stone sizes but eventually decided to stop pursuing the matter. Last month, they indicated they would continue works using the pneumatic hammer, which Mepa accepted.

Reacting, a Mepa spokesman said yesterday: “Although the authority would have preferred that the contractor adhered to the conditions agreed in the original Construction Site Management Plan, the authority had no alternative but to allow the contractor to make use of the pneumatic hammer as it does in all other construction sites.”

While commending Mepa’s decision to heed the complaints, Mr Mifsud said the authority should not go to extremes.

As he ran a finger over a surface to reveal a fine layer of dust, one resident said: “We spend our free time cleaning.”