More than 1,000 objections were submitted to the planning authority on the Renzo Piano City Gate project, environmental campaigner Astrid Vella said this morning.

Speaking during a forum on the environment, Ms Vella, spokesman for the environmental group Flimkien Ghal Ambjent Ahjar, said her organisation was not against the regeneration of Valletta but it did not believe that matters were being handled in the correct manner.

The Structure Plan for Valletta, she said, had indicated that all ministries were to be housed in the various palaces around the city. Parliament should also be housed in a vacant palace and money should not be spent on building something from scratch.

She also criticised the €15 million being spend on a roofless theatre.

On Fort St Angelo, Ms Vella noted that this was owned jointly by the Waterfront Consortium, the knights and Heritage Malta. She complained about the lack of funds allocated towards its regeneration.

€2.5 million were needed for its basic restoration, she said, and this was more urgent than the breakwater bridge to nowhere, which was to cost €1.8 million.

She criticised the demolishing of the knights armoury in Qormi, the application for which included the manipulation of the local plan.

While the Superintendent of Cultural Heritage had ordered its protection, the Development Control Commission ordered it to be demolished.

She referred to this as a fraudulent application saying the original building features had not been declared.

Ramblers Association secretary Alex Vella spoke about the controversial Bahrija development saying it was full of false declarations.

He criticised the continuation of works saying that although the original permit, which was to reconstruct original structures with very minor changes, had not been withdrawn, it had expired.

Church Environment Commission president Victor Asciak described the Malta Environment and Planning Authority as a “toothless old dog” since it was not living up to its role of being a regulator.

He declared that the biggest mistake that was ever committed was to give the authority responsibility for the environment, besides planning.

Prof. Asciak called for more accountability, saying that people who made mistakes should be accountable and held responsible.

Mepa auditor Joseph Falzon said that DCC meetings with applicants had stopped and minutes were now being taken of other informal meetings held.

He questioned the professional ethics of professionals within the authority and insisted that Mepa was not receiving good professional input.

The duty of an architect, he said, was not to find loopholes in the law because according to the oath taken, an architect’s allegiance was not to his clients but to the state.

Moral and human skills, he said, were as important as professional ones.

Mepa chairman Austin Walker said that the authority was in favour of having someone like Dr Falzon as its auditor. This did not mean, however, that there had to be agreement on everything.

The authority was also in favour of non-governmental organisations and their contribution.

However, everyone should use their energy to work together rather than to attack each other.

Also taking part in the forum were Friends of the Earth, Nature Trust and Birdlife.