| Impact study on golf course "flawed" www.timesofmalta.com 10 August 2002 The Front Kontra l-Golf Course said the environment impact study on the proposed golf course at Tal-Virt� points out the impacts that the proposal would have if the application were approved, but no attempt is made to measure these impacts and compare positive against negative ones or arrive at an overall cost-benefit result which covers economic, social and environmental aspects. In its comments to the Malta Environment and Planning Authority about the EIS, the front said that while the central benefit promoted by the EIS is an estimate of an annual addition of Lm2.8 million to Malta's GDP, on the basis that the proposed golf course could attract 12,000 extra five-star tourists (derived from the Deloitte and Touche study on the Verdala Hotel 1999), no comparative assessment is made of the costs to the Maltese economy nor the social and environmental costs of the project. The EIS has therefore omitted to use standard techniques of cost benefit analysis, of environmental valuation or of measuring social disbenefits, the front said. The EIS had also failed to present a risk assessment on the earnings figures for the proposed golf course, it added. The EIS admits major negative impacts on the farming community, agricultural land, archaeological features, landscape and visual amenity, ecology - but no attempt is made to give value to these impacts or weigh them against any possible positive impacts. This is a major flaw in the study and the front contends that the major negative impacts far outweigh any possible positive impacts, the front said. In general key economic 'forecasts' are not derived from standard statistical procedures, but are based on speculation, the front said. The front said it believed that the farmers have a right to continue to farm the land in question and would like to see the site upgraded and improved. The economic arguments in favour of the project are not convincing and are primarily based on an illogical premise: that if there are 44 golfers per 1,000 Britons, then 44 per 1,000 of our tourists will play golf. This is absurd. The front said that the amount of water that such a golf course needs is too high for our scarce and expensive resources. "We also must point out that we are not happy with the social scientist chosen for the sociological study, and we are not happy with his study. We did not find a good evaluation of the advantages and disadvantages of having the proposed golf course. "We found much wrong in many of the chapters and the conclusions reached are often not satisfactory. We totally reject the idea that the site will not improve without the golf course on site. "However, even without all the arguments that we have brought the golf course should not be approved because it would be in breach of the structure plan, and not only in a minor way as is suggested in the report. "The proposal would also breach the international agreement between the government and the Holy See. The EIA should never have been prepared as it is clear in the PA's guidelines to EIAs that the project should have been rejected outright as it goes against Structure Plan policy," the front said. |
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