The Church Environment Commission has heaped scorn on the Planning Authority for organising a conference on ‘liveable places’ – just weeks after it approved the db Group's City Centre project in Pembroke over the objections of thousands.

The conference in the first week of October, titled Planning for Liveable Places, will discuss “the need to create the right social, economic and environmental conditions for liveable places".

The Commission – whose previous chairman Victor Axiaq is now the chair of the Environment Resources Authority which voted in favour of the mega-project – had made its objections clear last May.

On Friday, it raised new points about the decision, asking: “What underlying reason could there be that would justify the brushing aside of these objections? In whose interest is the PA functioning? Such a decision surely rules out the interest of the surrounding communities.”

TIMES TALK: 'We've become pro-business instead of pro-people'

It also asked why the PA had not taken the decision within the framework of a masterplan, particularly one drawn up with communities’ wellbeing in mind.

“Has the PA succumbed to the pro-business at all cost bug as well? If that is the case, and the PA is proving to be another toothless watchdog (as the former MEPA), which authority would have the guts to challenge the current business model and promote a pro-community strategy for development?

“What Malta needs is not another political ping-pong match, but a concerted effort to promote a pro-community policy.”