The Planning Authority will be carrying out a site inspection of a scheduled shopfront in Valletta after a Facebook page flagged the state of disrepair of the Grade 2 wooden façade.

Raffaele Portelli 1917, at 78/79 Merchants Street, is just one of 100 shopfronts in the capital that the PA had scheduled 10 years ago.

The 2011 PA public notice for scheduled properties in Valletta, which included the iconic red shopfront in the Government Gazette of July that year, was hailed as an “excellent” initiative to protect the old wooden shops in the city. 

But the Belt Valletta Facebook page – designed to gather content related to the capital and its community – questioned what would happen if these properties were not owned by anyone and left to fall apart.

Showcasing before-and-after images of the decay, it highlighted that “it looks like it was all for nothing” in the case of the Raffaele Portelli 1917 shopfront.

The expectation was that the property would be turned into a restaurant next and would be “another loss for the soul of the capital”.

But, according to the Development Planning Act, the PA can exercise its powers of enforcement and issue a conservation order when a scheduled property is at risk of damage, the authority explained. 

The order would require the owner to carry out conservation works to avoid any further damage, it said, in response to what action the PA could take in the eventuality that protected properties were neglected.

Answering the dilemma of what happens if these listed shopfronts did not, effectively, belong to anyone and were not conserved, the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage told Times of Malta it was the property owner’s responsibility to ensure it is kept in good condition and not left to deteriorate.  

In the case of government-owned property, the responsible entity would be the Lands Authority, it said, without going into the merits of the Merchants Street shopfront.

The Raffaele Portelli shopfront before. Photo: Jonathan Borg

The SCH does not carry out restoration works since it is the regulator of the sector, it clarified.

However, in the case of any infringement of the Cultural Heritage Act 2019, the superintendent may serve a conservation and protection order on the owner or occupier of the property. 

“If any action required to be taken by a conservation and protection order has not been taken within the time specified, the superintendent shall have the right to enter the cultural property and may request the assistance of the police and take the required action, where applicable at the expense of the owner,” it explained, quoting the law.