The NGO Friends of Villa Frere is to appeal a Planning Authority decision giving the green light for the building of a nearby eight-storey block of flats.

Villa Frere, on Pieta seafront, was the residence of British diplomat, poet, scholar and philanthropist John Hookham Frere. After his wife’s demise in 1831, he built extensive terraced gardens and a belvedere from where he could look at the finely-crafted Grecian sepulchre where she was buried at the highest grounds of Msida Bastion Cemetery. Her sister was also buried there. 

But the planned block of flats will now irreversibly compromise that view, the NGO said.

"This hulk of concrete will continue to mutilate the context of Villa Frere and Giardino Zamittello, both Grade 1 heritage monuments, not to mention the shocking impact it will have on the Hookham Frere Primary School and the wellbeing of its hundreds of young pupils," the NGO said in a Facebook post.

"Despite our strong objections, the powers that be have shamefully once again chosen capitalism over Malta’s patrimony," it added.

The Friends promised to appeal the PA decision and keep fighting to preserve the immense cultural memory and identity that Villa Frere is steeped in, as well as its greater national legacy.