Marsaskala valley relocation for Fort Saint Leonard cow farm

The owner of a cow farm presently located within Fort Saint Leonard wants to relocate it to a scenic agricultural area consisting of terraced agricultural land, on the valley side of Wied il-Għajn in Marsaskala.

The farm will consist of a massive building over an area of 1,600sq.m and rise six metres above road level.

Low rubble walls and the presence of the historical St Nicholas country chapel mark the rural context of the area.

Both the Environment and Resources Authority and the Superintendence for Cultural Heritage expressed their concern at the proposed development, which includes large structures on an industrial scale.

The Superintendence advised against such “undesirable intensification of development which would inevitably have unsightly impact on the existing rural landscape”.

On its part, the ERA acknowledged that cow farms have to be relocated outside urban areas due to incompatibility with residential areas, but insisted that existing farm buildings should be used for this purpose in order to decrease environmental and visual impacts. In this respect, the site in question and its surrounding context is considered unsuitable for the relocation.

Attempts to relocate the farm from the fort have so far proved elusive, with the first attempt to relocate the farm and 11 others to Siggiewi in the vicinity of the Dar tal-Providenza, being turned down. An appeal on this application is still pending.

Fort Leonardo, where the farm is presently located, was built between 1872 and 1878 by the British military establishment, as part of improvements to Malta’s fortifications, rendered necessary by the introduction of iron-plated ships and more powerful rifled guns.

The fort remained in use by the British military until the 1970s but was rented to a cattle farmer in 1973 for an annual sum of €93. In 2016 the fort was mentioned as a possible alternative to Żonqor as the site for the American University of Malta campus, but subsequently Dock No 1 in Bormla was chosen to compliment a reduced site in Żonqor.