Dairy farm tried to stop construction of Lourdes fireworks factory in 1990

The owners of a dairy farm ravaged in last month’s fireworks factory explosion had repeatedly petitioned authorities through the courts in an effort to stop the factory being built in 1990.

The blast at the Lourdes Fireworks Factory killed four cows at the farm, with several others later euthanised as a result of their injuries.

It also caused widespread devastation to neighbouring farms and damaged properties even several kilometres away.

Following the blast, the farm’s current owner, James Vella, spoke publicly of its financial and emotional toll, saying that “everything built at a great sacrifice over several years was threatened or destroyed in the space of a few minutes”.

Other family members also described the “fear” caused by the factory, where another explosion had previously occurred in 2018.

The farm owners have filed a judicial protest against the factory operators, as well as various ministers and authorities. Vella Farms Ltd is demanding Lourdes Fireworks Factory pay more than €700,000 in damages.

A strongly-worded letter

Archival records show how these fears were echoed by the farm’s then-owner, Carmel Vella, at the time of the factory’s construction over 35 years ago.

In July 1990, Vella, through his lawyer Toni Abela, had written to the then-infrastructure minister Michael Falzon, expressing his fears of having a fireworks factory a stone’s throw away from their farm.

In the letter, Vella warned that the factory was being built “illegally and without any permits” just 165 metres away from the farm, “with all the danger this entails”.

The factory was being built beside a public road and near cultivated fields, he said, pointing out that Maltese law says fireworks factories must lie at least 183 metres away from inhabited areas.

The letter concluded by calling on authorities to issue a temporary enforcement order against the “illegal and abusive” construction.

The letter was also sent to the police commissioner, the Planning Area Permits Board, and the ministers for health and agriculture.

A second attempt

Shortly afterwards, yet to receive any reply to their letter, Vella and his son George took matters a step further, filing a judicial protest against the development.

Reiterating that the factory was being constructed without a permit, they warned that it would put them in “a constant state of danger,” given the frequency of fireworks-related incidents each year.

If the authorities failed to put a stop to the development, they said, they would hold them responsible in cases of injury to themselves or damages to their property, which they valued at more than Lm50,000 (approximately €116,500).

Meanwhile, in September 1990, Carmel and George Vella also filed a warrant of prohibitory injunction against the infrastructure minister and several other authorities, asking for works to be halted.

Government documents reveal how the San Ġwann fireworks club were granted the land for the factory

The injunction also targeted several members of the San Ġwann band club who, the Vellas said, were responsible for the factory’s construction.

In their injunction, they described how their lawyer had met with the minister, who had promised that works would be stopped.

However, instead of stopping or slowing down, the works “accelerated,” with authorities “not making the slightest effort” to resolve matters, the injunction said.

Injunction dismissed

The government, however, gave the complaint short shrift in a formal reply submitted just a few days later.

Authorities argued that the complaint was based on an assumption that the site would be used as a fireworks factory when the police commissioner, responsible for approving such licences, was still processing the band club’s application.

Meanwhile, the members of the band club named in the injunction said the factory was being built by a separate organisation, with an entirely different board of directors, arguing that they had no legal standing in the case.

The court agreed, dismissing the injunction in late September on procedural grounds.

The dispute continued to rumble on over the following months with the government eventually filing a counter-protest against Carmel Vella in 1991, describing his claims that they were tolerating illegalities as “unfounded and abusive”.

Vella would be held responsible if he persisted in his protests, authorities warned.

Land awarded by tender

A cache of government documents also reveal how the San Ġwann fireworks club were granted the land for the factory in the first place.

In February 1989, just over a year before the dispute with the Vella dairy farmers kicked off, the then-Lands Commissioner received a letter from the Għaqda Dilettanti Nar San Ġwann, in which the club asked to be given the land upon which the factory now lies, against an annual ground rent.

The land would be used to build “a small fireworks factory,” the club said.

Minutes from a meeting of the Explosives Committee held just over a month later, in April 1989, show that the committee agreed that the land “meets the necessary requirements for the setting up of a fireworks factory,” following a visit to the site.

The decision was signed off by police superintendent Andrew Seychell, AFM Major Albert Camilleri and Annetto Portelli from the Works Department.

By the following January, the Lands Department had issued a tender for the land to be awarded through a 50-year sub-emphyteusis.

The San Ġwann club’s offer promptly followed, with the club offering to pay an annual ground rent of Lm201 (approximately €468).

“The committee has long struggled to find a piece of land on which to build the factory it has long wished for,” it told the Lands Commissioner in its application.

The club’s offer was formally accepted in March 1990, with works on the factory beginning shortly afterwards.