The former chairman of the Planning Authority is due to take over as chair of the Environment Resources Authority, Times of Malta has learnt. 

Vince Cassar will replace Victor Axiaq as chair of the environment watchdog if he is approved when parliament’s Public Appointments Committee discusses his nomination on Wednesday afternoon.  

An architect by profession, Cassar, a former permanent secretary, had been placed at the helm of the now-defunct Malta Environment and Planning Authority in 2013 and continued to chair the PA’s most important decision-making body until he was replaced last year.

He still holds the role of chairperson of the Planning Authority’s Development Planning Fund Committee.

Axiak, a vocal critic of governmental policies in the fields of environment and land use and former chair of the Church's environment commission, had been appointed to head the ERA in 2016 when it was set up.

He is a professor of biology at the University of Malta and has been actively conducting research in marine pollution and other environmental matters.