Simon Saliba has been replaced by Claude Mallia as Planning Commission chairperson, months after several environmental NGOs called for his removal.

Saliba, who NGOs accused of "siding with developers" during hearings, served as chair of the commission that decides on applications within development zones. 

As of Thursday, that role will be fulfilled by Mallia, with Saliba relegated to serve as a member of the PA's regularisation committee. 

Claude Mallia will take over from Saliba. Photo: LinkedIn

He will replace Stephania Baldacchino, who joins Mallia on the committee for applications within development zones. 

The changes were announced by the Environment and Planning Ministry in a statement on Wednesday. 

Commission chairs and members are appointed to fixed terms, and the government cannot remove them from the boards altogether. They can, however, be asked to take on a different role within a different commission.

It is the second major shake-up of planning commissions announced within months, following the removal of Elizabeth Ellul as chair of the Outside Development Zone board.

Ellul was removed following a series of controversies concerning approved projects in ODZ areas. She now chairs the regularisation committee

Elizabeth Ellul.

Civil society anger towards Saliba bubbled to the surface in July, when 11 organisations called for his removal as chairperson "for obstructing the right to a fair planning process". 

The NGOs had insisted that the man consistently showed disrespect for residents and other objectors during planning authority sittings and "has often openly and aggressively sided with the developers instead of fulfilling his role as an impartial arbitrator". 

According to these organisations, one of his first big hearings was the Balluta ferry pontoon application, when his declared decision to refuse the permit was "hastily changed to an approval during a session in which he bizarrely appeared to be acting as lawyer for the developers".

They had even flagged an incident during which Saliba cut off the microphone of an activist who was finishing an intervention against the building of apartments on a site of archaeological importance in Kalkara.