The developers of the former Fortina Hotel, Fortel, who were given permission by the Planning Authority to build a massive residential property on the Tigné seafront overlooking Manoel Island in Sliema Creek, have now revised their plans and wish to convert the 15-storey apartment block into a mega-office complex. All this, in addition to an extension of the hotel consisting of a 23-storey tower block.

The application for a change of use of part of the development from residential to a mega-office complex is now expected to accommodate Bet 365, a major British gaming company that intends to transfer most of its operations from Gibraltar to Malta in the wake of Brexit.

While it is encouraging that efforts to attract British businesses to Malta, anxious to escape the adverse fallout of Brexit, are being rewarded in this case, the environmental, social, cultural and aesthetic consequences on the Tigné peninsula, and the whole of Sliema of which it forms a part, are immense.

These consequences are being severely underestimated by the Planning Authority, which is likely to grant permission for a change of use, thus allowing the property owners clinch the deal.

Three factors should give the Planning Authority pause before it issues the necessary permits.

First, conditions imposed by the government many years ago, when public land on which part of the development is to take place, was sold to Fortel, stipulated its future use as only to be tourism-related, not business office projects. Approval through passage of a specific parliamentary resolution is needed for change of use of the public land before the development can start.

Secondly, more pertinently, it would seem logical to assume that the change from residential to office use, employing hundreds of employees travelling in and out of the area in the course of the working day, would be expected to generate more traffic in the already clogged Tigné peninsula. However, the transport impact assessment has, surprisingly, concluded that the impact would be “insignificant during the weekday and weekend peak hours and… acceptable during the more critical morning hours”. The term “acceptable” in this case has not been defined.

The third factor concerns the continuing rape of this once outstandingly attractive residential area of Sliema. Given that all the indications are that the deal is done and that the Planning Authority is about to give overriding priority to big business interests over the quality of life of the people living there, in Qui-si-Sana, Għar-id-Dud and beyond, when will the regulator acknowledge the insanity of its ways and the social impacts of its unthinking policies on the people living there?

The Tigné peninsula had already been adversely affected 15 years ago by the ‘rabbit warren’ on The Point. It is shortly to be home to the 40-storey Fort Cambridge hotel and, not 1,000 metres away, the multi-storey Townsquare project. Their dominance over Sliema - once an elegant town of classic traditional architecture and one of the most desirable places to live - are an abomination that violate the locality’s spirit and texture, exacerbate traffic density in and beyond the area and make the lives of people who have been there for decades a daily misery.

On grounds of common humanity alone, the government should rethink its urban policies in Sliema.

This is a Times of Malta print editorial