Developer bids for Mellieħa cliff’s beekeeping tender

A Gap Holdings director, Paul Attard and his wife Lorraine, have tendered a bid for a Mellieħa cliff-edge that must be used for beekeeping purposed.

The Lands Authority tender is being protested by Mellieħa residents, with Nationalist MP Robert Cutajar also presenting a petition to the House’s petitions committee.

The Attards are bidding for the cliff-edge’s use with an annual €16,310 lease, while Spirodione and Tania Bartolo, also of Mellieħa, tendered with an annual €12,150 lease offer.

Mellieħa residents objecting to the Lands Authority tender for the Triq l-Għerien cliff-edge told the Lands Authority’s chairman, Dr John Vassallo, that at a proposed annual rent of €9,000 for 15 years, the amount of bees required for such an enteprise to be feasible would be “phenomenal”.

They also remarked that the land itself, located on a cliff-edge, did not appear to be suitable for beekeeping. “Such use will probably incur some sort of development on virgin land, and residents think this would be the first step for this pristine land, identified in the local plan as being of ecological importance, to be eventually developed.”

The zone itself is marked as a protected area in the North West Local Plan, specifically marked as a Level 2 Area of Ecological Importance under various Structure Plan Policies protecting inland cliffs, and important natural features within urban areas.

The residents said they were prepared to take legal action in a bid to safeguard their interests against the Lands Authority tender. “The tender is evidently being issued to the advantage of some third party who, with the excuse of beekeeping, gets to develop virgin, pristine land of ecological importance.”

Mellieħa minority leader Ivan Castillo said the area was not suitable for beekeeping and that the matter had been agreed upon unanimously by the local council, to oppose the Lands tender.

Nationalist MP Robert Cutajar said the tender’s logic was itself dubious. “People who understand the beekpeeing industry think it is very strange that this particular tract has been selected for the rearing of bees. With the nearby residence, this is surely not the most suitable place for beekeeping... one would expect hundreds of beekeeping hives with millions of bees to make this operatipon feasible, and this looks quite impossible.”

Cutajar said the Lands Authority’s tender was an insult to people’s intelligence. “It looks like this government has learnt nothing from the environmental ravages of the last years... as long as a few close friends are abetted.”