Have you heard about plans to dismantle Stonehenge and move it 150 metres because a road is planned in the area?

Or the one about moving the Eiffel Tower slightly to the left as it improves the sightline from the Seine?

Of course you haven’t. Because no one in their right mind would even consider it.

In Malta, however, we tinker with the past.

In 2012, an 18th-century house on the outskirts of Victoria was taken apart, stone by stone, and reassembled further away because of a road-widening project between Victoria and Xewkija. The house became the headquarters of Wirt Għawdex.

Consider the 19th-century Garden Battery at Tigné Point.

This was built by the British as part of the coastal defence for Marsamxett Harbour and Grand Harbour. It had been pretty much forgotten until excavation works started at Tigné Point in the early 2000s.

In this case, although the outline development permit said it could be demolished, the developers decided to keep it and make it part of a heritage route linking Fort Tigné with Fort Cambridge, as originally intended.

Developers have options. And MIDI did not take the cheaper one: all told, including the redesign, delays, and so on, it was deemed to have cost an additional €7 million.

And now we have Fort Chambray in Gozo. It is disingenuous for the culture ministry to respond to criticism of silence by claiming the plans to demolish the barracks “align with the ‘historical vision’ for the fort by the Knights of St John”.

There were numerous plans for the 18th-century fort over the centuries: to say dismantling the façade and reassembling it out of the way of development is part of the historical vision basically picks the most convenient history.

This is hardly the first time that the terms of a concession have been twisted rather than applied in the interests of taxpayers.

In spite of its location, the development of Fort Chambray has been controversial from the outset.

Plans in the late 1970s did not materialise, and the subsequent removal of the cemetery in the mid-1980s had already sparked anger. In 1993, Italian lawyer Roberto Memmo’s company was given a 99-year concession which never really got off the ground.

Gozitan businessman Michael Caruana stepped in to save the site in 2004 and managed to develop part of it, although not enough to create the momentum needed to make commercial and retail outlets feasible.

The plot thickened when Caruana was allowed to transfer the concession, with bipartisan parliamentary approval. This is hardly the first time that the terms of a concession have been twisted rather than applied in the interests of taxpayers. The beneficiaries: the concession holders who could not or would not abide by its terms.

So Caruana then applied for a permit on their behalf, which was granted last week by the Planning Authority, which will see the construction of 105 residential units and a five-star aparthotel with 50 apartments and 64 ensuite rooms. All of which depends on the pesky barracks not being in the way.

Of course, the new developers had a choice. They could have opted to build around the barracks. And they could have agreed to reduce their profits for the greater good.

They did not. And of course, the Planning Authority ignored impassioned pleas to schedule the barracks for their protection and all the objections filed by the public. Since the heartbreaking decision was taken, there has been a fierce outcry from NGOs, academics, art historians. It even made headlines in The Times of London.

Will we ever learn that a country’s true wealth lies in the stories its heritage tells, not in the buildings we tear down to build over them?