A five-day protest camp outside the Planning Authority, highlighting the 15-month delay in a review of the controversial fuel stations policy, will come to an end on Monday evening, activists said.

“We are convinced that the pressure on the authorities to revise the damaging policy is indeed working,” Moviment Graffitti, which organised the protest, said in a statement.

“These five days of direct action have been a truly encouraging experience for us since we have seen so many people expressing, in different ways, their outrage at the PA’s failure to change the fuel stations policy and at the authorities’ approach to our environment more generally.”

Graffitti said it was satisfied that public pressure had forced the authorities to set an April deadline for the publication of the revised policy.

“Should the authorities fail to publish the revised policy this month, or if the revised policy still allows ODZ fuel stations, Moviment Graffitti is ready to carry out further direct actions.”

We are convinced that the pressure on the authorities to revise the damaging policy is indeed working

The group also unveiled an online timer - www.pompitimer.org - counting the days, hours, minutes and seconds since the announcement of the policy review by environment minister Jose Herrera on January 25, 2018.

Graffitti set up camp outside the PA on Thursday morning, in what they called a symbolic siege in response to authorities ‘besieging’ the country with over-development.

Activists confronted planning minister Ian Borg and environment minister Dr Herrera outside their offices on Friday, where ministers promised to finally release the revised policy for public consultation this month.

The controversial 2015 Fuel Stations Policy allows facilities to ‘relocate’ from urban cores to up to 3,000 square metres of ODZ land, as well as permitting entirely new stations in rural areas.

The revision announced in January 2018, intended to reduce the burden on agricultural land, has not yet been completed.

Proposals issued last April by the ERA, within Dr Herrera’s remit, included a complete ban on all new and relocated fuel stations on ODZ sites, but Dr Borg suggested last month that the ban may be applied only to new facilities.