The place where the Ministry for Gozo is proposing to build the courts of justice, Pjazza Assedju 1551, is, as the name makes clear, a square, so it had never been planned for any type of building. As we were told before we bought our residential property over here, it was passed from the Church to the Joint Office with the aim of remaining an open space.

We are still very disappointed to note that the ministry found time to answer the objections raised by Alternattiva Demokratika in the newspapers but didn't find time to meet us residents.

We even went to the ministry in Victoria to get some information but nobody would give us any, and despite the fact that we even left our phone number, nobody called us back. Another strange thing is that when we went to the Victoria local council to enquire about the council's opinion on the matter, nobody told us anything. The administration staff just asked us to go back to the ministry since they told us they were not allowed to give us any information.

The ministry knows that the original plan was to build the courts in the big car park near the bus terminus, an area at least twice as big as Pjazza l-Assedju 1551. Construction would also pose less danger to the other buildings because it is a hundred metres away from them, while in our case, Pjazza l-Assedju 1551, is surrounded by businesses and residential buildings less than 11 metres away.

We were also told that the development in the parking lot near the bus terminus was abandoned because of the type of land (clay) underneath. In the case of Pjazza l-Assedju, it is even worse since some of the buildings near this area had to be pulled down because of the sliding land.

So we are sure that this proposed development will damage the surrounding properties. I hope somebody at the Prime Minister's office will take a good look at our situation because this goes against the pre-election promise of an Eco Gozo.

All the neighbours that we have spoken to seem to share the same opinion but a lot of them don't want to write their names in the newspaper because they are afraid of being blacklisted. Are we back to the early 1980s? After all, as European citizens we have to learn that expressing a concern or opinion is a fundamental human right.