MEPA rejects Ghar Lapsi platform

The Malta Environment and Planning Authority’s Planning Directorate has rejected plans by Carmen’s Bar in Ghar Lapsi to cover a large cavity created by wave action on the Ghar Lapsi shoreline with a removable timber and steel platform to be erected in the summer months. 

The platform was being proposed by the bar owners to create a 65 square metre tables-and-chairs area on public land at well-liked Ghar Lapsi cove. 

The application, which was entirely rejected, also foresaw the change of use of the existing establishment, where no cooking is allowed, to a full blown restaurant and the sanctioning of works, which included digging into the rockface near the bar.  

Board members Charles Grech and Mariello Spiteri objected to the change of use to allow cooking on the site as this would lead to the intensification of activity in the area. 

According to the case officer, part of the area (25 square metres) has already been covered by a concrete platform: the case officer has insisted that this would amount to the “covering of a public open space” and take up part of a public beach.  

The case officer had deemed acceptable plans for the change of use of the existing establishment to a full blown restaurant and the sanctioning of works.  

“The sanctioning of the interventions in the rocks is not acceptable. It is dubious whether the extent of the development in the rocks is covered by the necessary permits,” the EPD said. The EPD also expressed doubts on whether the bar itself is covered by a permit.  

The establishment operates legally through a police permit dating back to 1989, under a trading licence which was issued in 2015. An enforcement order issued in 1999 against unauthorised digging in the rocks was “withdrawn” a year later.

A year later a permit for an underground cesspit was approved despite a case officer report objecting to it. The establishment is described as a “shop” in the application for a cesspit.