Land in Marsaxlokk approved for a community jogging track will instead give way to a boat repair facility under a new government plan.
The site on Triq tat-Trunċiera, outside the development zones, is just 20 metres from a cluster of some 90 homes in the Port Ruman neighbourhood.
An application by the Marsaxlokk local council to build a jogging track and embellish the surroundings was submitted in 2007 and finally approved in 2016.
However, ignoring the approved permit, the government Fisheries Department has now submitted its own application to develop the site as a boat repair and maintenance facility, including a workshop and offices.
The application will be formally published by the PA tomorrow, but several residents have already objected, as has Alternattiva Demokratika.
Residents noted the proposal would increase bad odours and noise pollution, and further industrialise the area, while one said the site was directly opposite another boat repair yard for larger vessels which could be used instead of virgin land.
Marsaxlokk mayor Horace Gauci told the Times of Malta the jogging track had been proposed by the preceding council in its manifesto and the current council, elected in 2015, did not have a “mandate” to carry it out.
“Personally, I am in favour of a jogging track, but there are problems of boat trailers being left around the town which also have to be addressed,” he said.
Mr Gauci said the council was not consulted on the plans and had not yet taken on an official position on the development but was likely to suggest a jogging track be built over the repair facility.
The local council’s plans for a track were rejected by the PA in 2011 on the basis that they would “prejudice” a 16-year overdue draft guidance policy for the area, known as Kavallerizza.
The authority admitted the project followed the Marsaxlokk Bay local plan but insisted it could not be approved because the guidance document for the area was not ready, despite the local plan being published back in 1995.
The Environment and Planning Review Tribunal upheld an appeal by the local council against this decision a year later, giving the PA three months to complete the policy or issue the permit.
The Court of Appeal later confirmed the tribunal’s decision after a challenge by the PA, and the permit was finally issued in 2016, but no works have been carried out since.