Petra Caruana Dingli

by Petra Caruana Dingli The government has now announced that it is considering legal options concerning the permit for a residence in the buffer zone of the Ta’ Hagrat neolithic temple, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site.  A petition signed by around 1,500 people was launched by FAA and calls on the government to stop...

  by Petra Caruana Dingli Yesterday I attended a consultation meeting at MEPA, at which Alan Deidun raised the valid point that the government may be proposing a new ‘rationalisation of the development zones’ exercise, something like the one that took place in 2006. The inadequate spatial strategy that has been published for consultation (the ‘SPED’) by the...

by Petra Caruana Dingli The ‘civil unions’ debate – or lack of it – has provoked some thought in the newspapers today about whether the Maltese are liberal or conservative. Saviour Balzan in Maltatoday contends that the Maltese are basically conservative. Mark Anthony Falzon in the Sunday Times, on the other hand, dismisses the idea of...

by Petra Caruana Dingli After widespread discussion, and a fair amount of criticism, of the new policy that will regulate building in the countryside, today the Sunday Times reports that Minister for the Environment has said that his ministry was not consulted on this new ‘ODZ’ policy. How is this possible? If this important step was...

by Petra Caruana Dingli Those of you who are familiar with the Structure Plan will know that it is a pretty hefty document of 137 pages, accompanied by an explanatory memorandum of equal length and a list of diagrams. The Structure Plan is the foundation on which all our local plans and planning policies are...

by Petra Caruana Dingli The MEPA demerger was launched at various public meetings this week. It was not very helpful for the audience to find that the 100-point document about the demerger will not be available until Tuesday next week. Perhaps it was still at the proof-readers. There will surely be many interesting and valid points in...

  by Petra Caruana Dingli Imagine you are waiting for a very specific and important meal. First you are served the starter. The expected main course then takes very long to arrive. You complain, and complain again. Eventually, the waiter reappears and presents the same starter again, insisting that it is the main course. You are annoyed...

  by Petra Caruana Dingli In all the mud-slinging about the change of bus operators being led by the Minister of Transport, one of the environmental reasons for the bus reform in July 2011 is now rarely mentioned and seems to be taken for granted. This was to reduce air pollution on the roads by getting rid...