The very mission of the Planning Authority has been questioned after the "hasty approval" of a 32-storey tower in Paceville.

The PA is rubber stamping the approval of tower blocks without any serious consideration of the repercussions they will have on the needs of the community in the area and any other future development in the area, Din l-Art Ħelwa said in a harshly-worded statement.

The approval of the Mercury House Tower on Thursday was rushed through in four weeks, and in the absence of a master plan for Paceville.

Read: PA agrees to double the size of new Paceville tower

At 32 stories, this tall building is completely out of scale with the urban topography and the visual impact upon the entire country is the most significant in the entire history of development of Malta and Gozo, DLĦ said.

"It will result in unprecedented visual impact, very high density and it will have an extreme negative effect upon the entire infrastructure of the area not to speak of the daily visual intrusion on the neighbouring residential communities of Swieqi, St Julian's, Madliena and Pembroke and disruption of their quality of life."

The price of this is paid by the community and the tax payer and not by the developer, the heritage NGO protested.

DLĦ noted that the application for Mercury Tower was published on December, the DPA report endorsed by January 12 with a hearing set for January 25 where it was approved.

Din l-Art Ħelwa questioned how the Planning Authority and all the bodies that should have been consulted for this project could have carried out the required studies in less than a month.

"The country is being shamefully destroyed by a few developers for their own personal gain", said the heritage NGO, and the authorities are failing to protect the needs of the citizens of this country and those of its future generations.