We moved to Birguma, San Pawl tat-Tarġa, for peace and quiet. And the place we chose to live was surrounded by beautiful gardens – and enormous pine trees.
To our horror, after our neighbours sold their house, the unscrupulous contractor chose to chop down these beautiful mature trees. I made a complaint and took photos of the first enormous old tree to be felled, but in vain.
Worse was to follow as the contractor applied to build nine maisonettes in a bungalow area, and by listing the site address as Naxxar, not Birguma, he obtained a permit. All the neighbours were up in arms and managed to stop him, accepting a compromise plan of six bungalows with no room on the roof. So everyone relaxed thinking that as registered objectors they would be informed of any developments on the site.
Naively we expected that the Malta Environment and Planning Authority would never allow the same contractor to file another application on the same site without informing the objectors. The contractor took advantage of this and his unchallenged application was approved, with the result that we are now facing a two-storey house in a bungalow area, with a pool squashed in on the side, trying to get maximum space – no gardens, just concrete.
This squeezing and squashing of more structures into a site which is essentially a filled-in quarry eventually resulted in the collapse of our pool. Deaths were avoided only by a miracle; however, the stress to deal with all the damage, unpleasantness and legalities that the situation created has taken its toll.
What is going on? When is this madness going to end?