I would like to support and compliment Petra Bianchi's very good article regarding past and present limestone applications (Classified section, The Sunday Times, March 30), although I would have titled it 'The possibilities with limestone'.

I hope that many Maltese will appreciate the article's contents, as I have noticed that local limestone is not valued sufficiently as a prime natural resource.

Globigerina limestone, as found in Malta, can be used for different applications, as Ms Bianchi has pointed out.

These include building blocks for structures, special buildings and housing in particular. She also points out that many old buildings are being demolished for different reasons. A considerable quantity of the blocks resulting from demolition are aged and weathered and in excellent condition. They will not deteriorate and have withstood the 'test of time' as they have been mined from quarries with the harder/better quality of limestone.

Such blocks should be separated immediately (under government direction) for reuse in construction. In Gozo, a considerable number of new homes are being built precisely in that manner. Since such blocks have a proven quality, their application will also involve limited maintenance in future as well as a reduction in quarry requirements.

Both the limestone, which is the product of, as well as from excavation, could have been used for land reclamation in Malta in view of its very high population density. This amount of material could create anything between 50-65 hectares of new land over the shallow coastal areas, instead of being dumped at sea five kilometres offshore and in various disused quarries.

With land value, approved for development, at up to €700,000 a tumulo, this could create land worth €350 million at relatively little cost, as transport cost and special government levy is already covered in any case.

Last but not least: the limestone formations on top of which large localities are developed, allow the creation of vast underground spaces, as already being practised on a small scale, for the use of underground parking below new apartment buildings. The same technique can be applied on a large scale to create the urgently required spaces for parking, commercial and services corridors.

Large open excavations, close to the surface, can be roofed over with, for example, concrete structures in a very economical way as the excavation is self-supporting, whereas deep excavations (as proved by the recent boring of various major tunnels in Malta) are also self-supporting due to the attractive rock characteristics (boring in the Malta limestone is like slicing butter with a hot knife) allowing large dome-shaped spaces as when Malta's railway was built in the early 1880s.