I fully agree with your environment columnist Anne Zammit (September 12) about the shambles being created in this Mellieħa area.
I would like to make an additional shocking point about the rape of the Mellieħa Heights inland cliff area mentioned by Ms Zammit. While the Malta Environment and Planning Authority has denied all permits to build a wall on this area because it is actually protected from all sorts of development, the Department of Lands has intervened to circumvent and annul this protection by sending in its own bulldozers to prevent all access through the old traditional path to the cliff edge.
The public road is kept under surveillance by undeclared CCTV cameras and passersby who dare to sit on the low road wall to enjoy the scene are screamed at and the police are called in to interrogate them about their intentions!
All appeals to remedy this sad situation by expropriating the land for manifest public purposes have fallen on deaf ears.