Eight NGOs have requested the postponement of the controversial db Group project in Pembroke after an undeclared underground Cold War bunker which housed a sub-station in the 1950s, and an engine room dating from the 1930s were revealed underneath St George's Barracks.

The NGOs requested the Superintendent of Cultural Heritage to issue an Emergency Conservation Order on the heritage features on site and to carry out a proper assessment to save what can still be saved.

"This smacks of a shoddy and negligent approach where all is fast-tracked and heritage is ignored so that it can easily be destroyed," the organisations said in a statement. 

This smacks of a shoddy and negligent approach where all is fast-tracked and heritage is ignored

Following the Planning Authority's approval of the db Group project last year, three local councils, several NGOs and residents came together to appeal the decision.

The NGOs said the features are of considerable significance from an industrial heritage as well as military point of view, however they have not received any mention in the heritage assessment reports commissioned by the developer.

Both features would be totally obliterated if the project is allowed to go ahead, along with the earliest example of British period barrack blocks in Malta.

The NGOs said: "We cannot understand how such features have failed to show up on any of the studies presented to the public and supposedly scrutinised by the Planning Authority. It shows that the public has no one to turn to for effective assessment of applications."

The eight organisations are Din l-Art Ħelwa, Ramblers' Association of Malta, BirdLife Malta, Friends of the Earth Malta, Moviment Graffitti, Flimkien għal Ambjent Aħjar, Bicycle Advocacy Group and Żminijietna – Voice of the Left.

The sub-station.