Alternattiva Demokratika has called on the planning authority’s auditor to look into the Dwejra debacle.

The Green party said it was inconceivable how the planning authority could have allowed any kind of activity whatsoever to take place on the site, in view of the strict rules imposed by the EU Habitats Directive.

The Gozo Natura 2000 site was marred when production company Fire & Blood’s subcontractors spread sand all over the protected area, which compromised the site’s natural integrity and violated the conditions laid down by the Malta Environment and Planning Authority prior to filming.

The conditions laid down that the “surfacing and dressing of sites within Dwejra and Rdum id-Delli, other to the levelled rock surface at id-Dwejra, is prohibited”. The site, according to the conditions, should also have been kept clean and any new construction in masonry or any other material had to be temporary and free standing. They also called for an impermeable layer upon which any new artefact would stand.

However, for Carmel Cacopardo, AD’s spokesman for sustainable development, the conditions in the first place should not have existed and the mere fact that a permit was given was a gross mistake.

“In my opinion, the Environment Protection Directorate of Mepa, as the competent authority in terms of the Habitats Directive, has permitted activities which it is in duty bound to prevent from happening,” Mr Cacopardo told the Mepa auditor, Joe Falzon.

He requested the auditor to “investigate the manner in which Mepa has handled the incident through both the actions and inactions of the Planning Directorate and the Environment Protection Directorate”.

Mepa said it had passed on all the relevant documentation to its auditor, adding workers employed by the producers of Game of Thrones were in the “final phase” of collecting the offending sand and reintegrating the site under Mepa’s monitoring. Work on collecting the sand has been going on for the past two weeks.