Vigilant public: public reports 2,105 planning illegalities

In that particular year, MEPA's Enforcement Directorate received a total of 2,105 complaints on planning irregularities on sites that did not already have an Enforcement Notice issued on them.

This emerges from MEPA's recently-published annual report for 2011.

According to MEPA director for enforcement Alexander Borg, this is a clear sign that the general public is now more aware of the environmental and planning requirements. "Reports are continuously originating from various sources, particularly from the media, local councils and NGOs," Borg said.

Borg described these reports as very valuable to MEPA since the Authority's Enforcement Officers cannot be everywhere all the time.

A total of 1,282 of these cases were solved by the Enforcement Officers after the necessary investigations and dealings with perpetrators were carried out.

A considerable number of illegal development cases (316) were solved after the enforcement officers succeeded in resolving issues without the need of resorting to enforcement action against the developers.

Borg also revealed that MEPA has singled out the area known as Ta' Baldu/Wied Hazrun situated in the limits of Rabat and Dingli, where the same authority had issued a number of controversial permits in the run up to the 2008 election which involved the sanctioning of illegalities. 

This development - approved by the controversial DCC board which resigned before the election - was the subject of a strongly worded report by MEPA Auditor Joe Falzon in December 2010.

Ta' Baldu is a Special Areas of Conservation (Natura 2000 sites designated under EU legal provisions) and also an area of high landscape value and ecological importance.

"The main objective for MEPA is to intervene and revert back the site to its pristine condition before further illegal developments crops up."

With this strategy, MEPA is also sending out the message to citizens, that in such areas of high importance, "zero tolerance" is the main criteria used, Borg said.