An attempt by Otters ASC to excavate a 375 sq meter hole along the foreshore in Marsalforn for a sea water pool and to construct a gym, stores, pump room and administration buildings has finally been defeated at the Planning Authority, Altarnattiva Demokratika said today.

Proceedings had been going on for two years and three hearings of the Development Control Commission were held.

AD said that Marsalforn residents were never informed that 597 meters of public foreshore and another 234 meters of an existing building had already been ceded to this club in 2005 by a parliamentary deed.

"Yet again, Alternattiva Demokratika was the only party which had immediately declared its support for the Marsalforn residents objecting to this application and had organized a protest meeting near site on the 16th December 2007. As a registered objector AD sent its representatives to all these hearings."

During the last DCC hearing, on Tuesday, architect Carmel Cacopardo argued that this application ran counter to various Structure Plan Policies within the Gozo and Comino Local Plan, such as, that this area should remain undeveloped and open, that no studies based on demographic projections were ever conducted, that public access to the foreshore had to be safeguarded and that this area was a designated as an Area of High Landscape sensitivity.

The DCC Board voted unanimously for the refusal of the encroachment of the public foreshore.

AD praised the DCC for its decision but also called on the government to keep its 1991 promise to give the Gozitans a public swimming pool.