A Cospicua home for the elderly will be partly demolished and rebuilt to the same size, if a planning application is approved.   

Once reconstructed, the building will continue serving as a home for the elderly according to the recently available planning application PA/03656/23.

“The new proposed Bormla home shall not exceed the existing building volume and the number of floors and shall retain the same use,” the application says.  

The building houses 128 residents who are set to be moved to other homes while the works are carried out, sparking protests. Residents, many of whom are from the Cottonera area, have been told they will be relocated to other state-run care homes while the building is demolished and rebuilt.

Earlier this month, Active Ageing Minister Jo Etienne Abela told Times of Malta that the government must rebuild parts of the home because it was poorly built using low-quality concrete.

“The consistency of the concrete seems to be very patchy and substandard," Abela had said.

Computer-generated renders submitted to the Planning Authority as part of the application indicate the government intends to rebuild the home to be practically identical, at least externally, to the building currently standing. 

The Cospicua home was inaugurated in December 1999 and cost an estimated €5.7 million to build. 

Labour MEP Alfred Sant, who laid the building’s foundation stone in 1997 when he was prime minister, has called for an administrative inquiry to determine who should shoulder responsibility for the building's structural problems. 

The Nationalist Party has also called for an inquiry, saying one is needed to determine the real state of the home. 

The minister has dismissed those calls and pledged to have the home vacated by the end of June.