MEPA stopped in direct action on Wardija building by court injunction

The case started off some 5 years ago when Mepa’s enforcement unit detected the illegal development of four adjacent rooms, boundary walls, concreting and timber gates in this stretch of countryside.

Following this, enforcement notice ECF 303/05 was issued in April 2005. Subsequently, the landowner submitted two separate planning applications for the illegal development to be sanctioned.

In the meantime an additional application was submitted in 2007 to sanction the re-building of rural rooms and conversion into stables and other landscaping works, but inspections by the Enforcement Unit in April 2008 showed that the use of the building, complete with shower, bathroom and kitchenette, was not as stables but was habitable.  This was also confirmed by other government entities.

The case officer had also commented that there was no evidence of any permitted rooms on site.

All three applications were refused. The initial two were then reconsidered and even appealed by the owners, but all of these were dismissed, with the Appeals decision being given in May of this year, whilst the third application’s reconsideration was dismissed in last July.

Earlier this month the owner was given notice that direct action was going to be carried out unless he removed the illegal structures from this site. The landowner took no notice and so the Authority today started carrying out its direct action operation following which it received a court notice.

“Although this is the fourth case in less than a month where the Authority was temporarily impeded from carrying out its work, MEPA will remain committed with its efforts to restrain illegal development,” a MEPA spokesperson said.