Thread by @thetimes

#WorldAtFive🌍: A rash of developments has raised fears for the country’s environment and heritage, and turned attention back to the corruption exposed by Daphne Caruana Galizia before her murder five years ago, writes Tom Kington thetimes.co.uk/article/maltas…

After a decade in which Malta’s economy was turbo-charged by banking, online gambling and passport sales to Asian billionaires and oligarchs, a resulting rash of construction has allegedly been accelerated by quick permits and conflicts of interest.

In Xaghra, close to Qala, cranes dominate the skyline and trucks pound down narrow streets filled with dust clouds from building sites as developers seize the chance to build apartments overlooking the nearby Ramla beach.

With about 16% of Malta’s land built upon – a European record and far higher than the UK’s 3% – builders are increasingly turning their attention to Gozo, hitherto seen by the Maltese as an uncluttered weekend refuge.

Heritage campaigners have scored some successes against the wave of development. Plans to build a five-storey block of flats overlooking the 5,600 year old Ggantija temple in Xagħra – a Stone Age place of worship older than the pyramids – were halted.

In a rare interview this year with the Times of Malta, Joseph Portelli, the Gozo native and developer behind many of the island’s new buildings, defended construction at Xlendi, stating, “How can a nice block of flats on the seafront be ugly?”

Claiming Malta has “another 100 years” of construction left in it, Portelli said he envisaged 50 high-rise towers springing up in Paceville and suggested more flyovers were needed to handle the island’s growing traffic problem.

In an angry speech to local political leaders last month, the Archbishop of Malta, Monsignor Charles Scicluna, denounced the “uglification” of the island, claiming new buildings designed for profit, not to provide housing, were “destroying the sense of beauty” in Malta.

The man critics see as sharing responsibility for the boom is Johann Buttigieg who led Malta’s planning authority from 2014 to 2019.

He told The Times that the construction boom was a simple case of “supply and demand” fuelled the growing health and gaming sectors.

Buttigieg this year found himself caught up in a controversy about how exactly those regulations are made, including allegations of secret deals between builders and government officials to fix them.

The builder in question was none other than Yorgen Fenech, the construction and gambling mogul now in custody charged with ordering the murder of Caruana Galizia in 2017 to stop her exposés of his affairs, an accusation he denies.

You can read the full story here:
thetimes.co.uk/article/maltas…