More Nationalist backbenchers have emphasised that the four cornerstones of the Mepa reform were efficiency, accountability, independence and consistency.

Jesmond Mugliett said Mepa was a natural process, although it had changed over the years in terms of procedures, policies, local plans and priorities in environment protection.

Structural planning was needed to safeguard the country's resources. Mepa had adopted modern systems based on scientific evidence and experience and managed to gain the people's trust.

The Bill emphasised the need for Mepa to establish development thresholds, effective reinforcement, accountability and transparency, and to become more efficient and less bureaucratic.

Mr Mugliett said quality plans were being given secondary importance and eventually neglected. The directorate was being heavily criticised. On the one hand the government was saying the bodies within Mepa should not be amalgamated, but the reform would reinforce the planning directorate. On the other hand, criticism from the opposition was that structure planning was outdated and there was an increasing need for spatial planning.

The opposition had criticised the culture of development. While the Chamber of Architects argued in favour of the Mepa reform, it stated that there should be a focus on the development quality. It had suggested a Built Environment Department.

The EU held spatial planning as a concept of cohesion that integrated many aspects. Malta was an active participant in such discussions through various fora. Due to its size, and contrary to other EU member states, Malta had no issue of integrating its regional areas. The Chamber of Architects was looking at the process of neighbourhood integration.

Mepa had come under enormous pressures and had, over time, increased the approved height for buildings.

Mr Mugliett referred to the tribunal substituting the board of appeal, and said this would lead to the creation of another court within Mepa. When an appeal was made, the urgency to take decisions within a certain amount of time was evident. The current backlog of appeals was jamming projects and they were considered frivolous.

Importance would be given to the enforcement directorate, stopping or slowing down abuse. There would be requests for reconsideration of certain applications where the same case officers would be able to reconsider the refused application at their discretion, rather than going by the book.

He emphasised the necessity for speedy and objective negotiations, and hoped that the proposals in the Environment and Development Brief would work. But Mepa should be ready to share the information it collected with other bodies.

Concluding, Mr Mugliett said the reform was a courageous one. The main challenge, however, was how one would change mentality and promote what was really sustainable development.

Beppe Fenech Adami said the reform was the result of the PN's electoral promises to take measures which safeguarded the environment. The rent and local council reforms, approved by Parliament over the past two years, had contributed to the protection of the environment.

The proposed Local Enforcement Bill would also contribute to the protection of the environment by addressing noise and dust pollution, especially on construction sites. The environment was further protected through new measures undertaken these last two years to switch to alternative energy.

Dr Fenech Adami said that the Planning Authority had come into being to do away with ministerial discretion. It was a success story, even though in later years it had started losing its efficiency while there were allegations of lack of transparency.

It had become too bureaucratic, even where applications for minor changes to existing residences were concerned. Bureaucracy and inefficiency had led some investors to withdraw their applications from Mepa.

He said the Bill addressed these problems, adding that it was important that the law be administered by competent people.

Philip Mifsud said that admittedly, Mepa could not please everybody because it was also a regulator. But despite the benefits the creation of Mepa had brought, there was always room for improvement, especially in efficiency because the planning application process was taking longer than the permissible time limit.

The Mepa reform was no doubt one of the most complicated. The process in itself was already complicated, but there were diametrically-opposed forces which did not always allow for practicability. Developers wanted a speedier process, but environmentalists wanted more constraints. It was necessary to have a wide process of consultation for the government to find the right balance.

Planning applications would now be accessible to third parties, and this would be the public test of Mepa's consistency .

The site notices of applications for development in ODZ would now be in a bigger format, and applicants must inform neighbours of proposed developments.

Pre-submission meetings were important because applicants and their architects would know whether an application had a chance of being approved or not.

Mr Mifsud said Mepa's responsibility did not stop after a permit was granted.

Unjustified delays in releasing bank guarantees once the conditions in the permit were satisfied meant additional expenses to the applicant.

He called for a more stringent enforcement mechanism.

Concluding, Mr Mifsud said the proposed legislation must come into force as soon as possible to ensure sustainable development.

Frederick Azzopardi said that Mepa had adopted a number of policies that gave rise to different interpretation and, therefore, certain decisions were inconsistent.

To address this situation, a commission had been set up, which investigated whether there were conflicting policies and to identify policies that were no longer valid.

The Mepa reform was not a one-entity reform because planning and environment were related to every sector. The reform affected employment, the quality of life and the future of Malta.

The government should give a strategic direction to regulators that were responsible for forming and implementing policies. There should be an administration that was able to plan, coordinate and adopt good management principles. The profits would be considered according to the common interest, he said.

Mr Azzopardi said that applicants should know who took a decision and on what basis, ensuring transparency within the process. In democratic systems, Parliament should have the final say especially on the environment.

The Mepa reform was not aiming to make the authority popular but to consolidate the planning process, and for this to be understood by the people. While this reform aimed to have a better Mepa, it also focussed on having a better society.

Moreover, the Mepa reform was also related to Eco-Gozo, where the government would transform Gozo into an eco-island which would result in a model for sustainable development. The Eco-Gozo project would be strengthened by the Mepa reform.

Meanwhile, Mepa had already changed the way permits were approved. From a closed process, it had adopted a more open process. Even its harshest critics agreed that things that took place in the 1980s had been done away with.

Concluding, Mr Azzopardi said that when the Bill was approved, the environment would be more at the centre of policies.

He stressed that everyone should have the environment as their priority because it affected other sectors.