A court yesterday revoked a decision by Mepa’s revision tribunal, ruling it had overstepped its powers by approving further development at a site in the limits of Mellieħa.

In 2008, Ray Fenech had applied to increase the number of houses and garages in plans that had been issued in 2004 in connection with a development at Tas-Sellum.

The tribunal had upheld the request but third-party objectors Silvio Debono, Winston Azzopardi, Barry Doughty, Alex Vella, Tony Galea, Peter Bonnici, Edward Cassar, Ronald Mifsud, Luiggi Faut and Peter Bregman appealed.

Mr Justice Mark Chetcuti ruled yesterday the appeal was based on a point of law and so the court had jurisdiction to decide upon it.

The case, said the court, revolved on the discretion used by the tribunal when approving the permit.

The objectors based their appeal on the fact that the planning permission did not comply with provisions of the North West Local Plan policy NWML 13.

They said the tribunal had divided the policy into parts that had to be followed and others that were merely generic and illustrative.

The NWML policy, the judge noted, contained 10 conditions for approving development permits. The most important ones were that the housing density had to be 85 units for every 10,000 square metres and that the built-up footprint could not exceed 45 per cent of the total site.

The court was concerned the tribunal had declared these measurements to be incorrect and authorised a development that contained more housing units.

The tribunal’s role was to ensure an application met the set requirements and it could not justify issuing a permit by claiming the policy was incorrect.

The decision went beyond the tribunal’s legal powers. It was entitled to interpret policies but not to correct or ignore them, even if, in its opinion, the policy was mistaken. The court annulled the decision and sent the case back to the tribunal for the objectors’ appeal to be heard again.