Editorial: A welcome boost for heritage restoration

The reopening of the Planning Authority’s scheme to fund the restoration of scheduled buildings outside the Urban Conservation Area (UCA) is good news.

The scheme is meant to encourage these important parts of our built heritage to be restored by offering funding, which could make the work economically feasible – or, at least, to improve the financial balance enough to make it viable.

Bear in mind that the work that can be done to a scheduled building is limited: it has to preserve its architectural integrity and historic character. And what you cannot do is laid down in the Development Planning Act: “the demolition, alteration or extension of, any scheduled property is prohibited or restricted” as specified in the law or in the relative conservation order.

There have been numerous cases relating to construction hauled before the Environment and Planning Review Tribunal and even higher to the courts. Some of these deal with developments in UCAs but we have also learned from numerous contentious cases about the importance of context, whether the view from across a bay or within a buffer zone to the impact on the surrounding neighbourhood.

The negative aspects of these cases are thankfully counterbalanced by positive examples, which show what can be achieved if profit is not the main motive: from art galleries and event venues to educational spaces in 19th century villas.

For years now, the bad apples in the construction sector have dominated the headlines but, apart from dubious methods used, the sheer numbers of projects have resulted in dust and diversions in far too many areas.

Bear in mind that almost three-quarters of the 88,000 units given a permit in the decade between 2015 and 2024 were on sites that were previously built up, and the vast majority of those 66,500 units were ‘conversions and redevelopments’. How many two-storey terraced houses now soar four or five storeys high?

This makes it all the more important to put a cordon of protection around those buildings of architectural importance, ensuring that they are retained and restored to their previous glory.

Enforcement of the laws and plans is one way to guarantee that the Malta of tomorrow retains its jewels – but the Planning Authority is also, through these schemes, adding carrots to the sticks. The funding amounts are up to €100,000 for a Grade 1 building and €50,000 for Grade 2 buildings, representing a total of €1 million.

Planning Minister Jonathan Attard said it was aimed at “restoration projects that will benefit present and future generations”.

This scheme dovetails with the €33 million Restore Your Home scheme, which offered grants to restore façades of buildings in UCAs.

There was also another scheme amounting to €190,000 for cultural and voluntary organisations, helping them to tackle altars, apertures, architectural decoration, gilding, paintings and other decorative surfaces in parish churches – 14 projects in all. Each of these promotes our built heritage.

Indeed, the conversation about Maltese culture should not be limited to language and food.

Architect Frank Gehry said: “Architecture should speak of its time and place but yearn for timelessness.”

That is why we need to cherish our past and not leave it to generations of the future to dig it up and imagine what it looked like.

This latest restoration scheme will encourage us to look beyond the decaying façades to the beauty of a building’s past and the people who lived there. The PA is often, and rightly, criticised for decisions that have scarred Malta's towns and villages through insensitive development and needless demolitions.

But when the authority uses its resources and powers to preserve rather than erase our architectural heritage, it deserves recognition as readily as it deserves criticism when it falls short.