The Mepa auditor’s report on the extension of the existing secondary school at the Seminary in Tal-Virtù (The Sunday Times, January 16) highlights many shortcomings. Chiefly these were in the procedure adopted by the Mepa case officer in his assessment of the application and also the Mepa directorate’s recommendation for approval of the project to the Development Control Commission (DCC).

These shortcomings included the fact that no assessment was made of the need for the development or its siting – which is specifically referred to in the 2006 North West Local Plan. Regarding traffic, it was accepted that the impact on Rabat of the mild 330 per cent increase in the student population from 250 to 825 will be mitigated “by staggering school hours”.

This ludicrous suggestion was not even made conditional to the permit.

So now we are stuck with very possibly a bad development in the wrong location which will cause further congestion to Rabat and not “protecting the amenity of the residential priority area”.

A reading of this recommendation gives the impression that the case officer was somehow eager to recommend this project and glossed over several important issues in a familiar ‘ticking-boxes’ exercise of superficial compliance with Mepa policies.

This starkly shows the danger of giving case officers the opportunity, power and discretion to mislead the DCC (now called the EPC in the new planning law) by not assessing the policies but merely quoting them in cut-and-paste exercises, the applicant may well (but often will not) get a good deal but the public at large also may well be shortchanged. We are all losers when Mepa does its job badly.

The auditor states that the situation with this permit is that “no redress can be offered as there are no ways of withdrawing or amending the permit in terms of the provisions of the Development Planning Act”.

In default of the law apparently being such an ass, the redress is something that the Archbishop, as the ultimate client in this case, has on his conscience. With the increasing commitments to this ongoing project on site, this redress is receding by the minute.

When the Kamra tal-Periti and Din l-Art Ħelwa among others harp on the need for ‘quality’ in the Mepa reform, not many appreciate this insistence. ‘Quality’ would have delivered a much more professional assessment and a far happier development.