Having read the article entitled Mepa Acted To Protect Villa Bologna penned by Godwin Cassar, Mepa director general, and seen the full page advert on page 18 (November 28), on behalf of my clients the owners of Villa Bologna in St Anton Street, Attard, I have to draw attention to the following:

When drawing up the Local Plan Mepa did not protect Villa Bologna as part of its grounds were clearly identified by Mepa as suitable for development as a villa area.

My clients naïvely did not react to the draft Local Plan nor did they bother to check it as they mistakenly assumed that the authorities entrusted with the protection of the environment and land use planning were responsible enough to consult them directly relative to matters clearly concerning their property.

My clients never requested the inclusion of their property or any part of it for development purposes. It would be interesting if the public is informed whether there was any prompting by third parties to include a sizeable part of the villa garden within the Local Plan scheme for development.

The buffer zone requested is not related to the area which my clients sold in 1996, which area was already then suitable for development. It relates to an area which until August 2, 2006 was schemed as a green area and overnight became suitable for development.

The land sold by my clients in 1996 is buffered from Villa Bologna by the width of the street. The former green area which Mepa with the approval of the Environment Minister included as developable land in the Local Plan is very close to Villa Bologna which it practically touches.

It is only on November 22, 2007 that Mepa accepted to process my request on behalf of the owners for the scheduling of Villa Bologna and its grounds. Had Mepa been proactive, in line with its mission statement it would have taken the initiative itself ages ago. Yet instead it included part of it as land suitable for development.