Call for reform of Mepa board structures

Din l-Helwa, the environment NGO, in a resolution approved at its annual general meeting yesterday called for the composition of MEPA boards and commissions to reflect more closely the different components of civil society whose concerns they are there to represent.

It also called for MEPA's procedures and systems to be tightened up and amended as necessary so that Outside Development Zone applications are rejected outright, illegal developments are never sanctioned, written guidelines and procedures are scrupulously followed and enforcement procedures are rigorously implemented.

The NGO also welcomed the recent report by the Chamber of highlighting the damage done to Malta's natural and cultural heritage and called on the authorities to heed it.

"This report details the low level of importance given to aesthetics in building, bad quality in construction, poor and inappropriate land use with the resultant impact on our towns, villages and countryside. It details some very valid solutions to the problem of planning in Malta, including the setting up of a design review commission, a national policy on architecture, the importance of aesthetics and architectural style in school curricula and the concept of public spaces which is so often overlooked. Malta has reached the stage where the architects themselves, who earn a living from construction, have had to speak out at the gross excesses in development we have witnessed since the early 1960s," Din l-Art Helwa said.