World War II and its severe ravages brought on an abnormal situation in many countries, including Malta, where the balance of supply and demand in housing and commercial premises was heavily disturbed.

Emergency legislation was enacted in Malta to ensure a measure of fair distribution of available facilities at affordable rentals. This made sense in the immediate post-war period. Practically all countries adopted similar measures.

But while most countries came out of the emergency mode within 10 to 20 years, Malta dragged its feet. Apart from some limited minor measures, technically termed “tinkering” in planning jargon, it kept evading the issue and the long-awaited 1995 Act, while wiping the slate clean for subsequent leases, swept all the existing 50 plus old leases (temporary, emergency, call them what you like) under the carpet.

In the meantime, the context had changed completely, from shortage to surfeit, and the long-trampled human rights aspect had become a hot European issue. As a sop to Cerberus, the Rent Laws Act of 2009 was approved with great fanfare by both sides of the House. Its rental updates were so parsimonious that it could be termed a Barmecide feast after that Persian nobleman in the Arabian Nights who treated his guests to a feast of empty dishes.

Leaving aside the human rights aspect, which is obvious to everybody, let us have a look at the planning aspect. A good slice of our strategic housing stock, sited in the urban or village cores, is underutilised and very poorly maintained. A massive building sprawl has been produced by the unavailability of the “controlled rent” buildings, a large part of it by direct government action.

A recent government initiative is its declared intention to rent houses and apartments at commercial rents from the huge surplus of vacant new buildings and to let them out at subsidised rents to people who find it difficult to afford present day commercial rents. May I suggest that it could extend this policy to “protected” tenants who could then be evicted from “controlled” houses, returning these to their rightful owners after 60-odd years. How about this for a New Year resolution?