| Moviment ghall-Ambjent Friends of the Earth (Malta) tel/fax 21 342269 [email protected] AX Holdings resorts to buying its support AX Holdings has tried a variety of tricks to push forward its proposed golf course at Tal-Virtu limits of Rabat and yesterday revealed another trick. AX Holdings has bought the support of the heritage society Wirt Artna. The group has been sponsored by AX Holdings and even has the company's name on its letterhead. We call on Wirt Artna to explain its support for the golf course with reference to the Structure Plan, the legal implications and sociological and environmental considerations. Wirt Artna's reputation is now in the doldrums and it cannot expect support from other environmental groups. AX Holdings, on its part, has on several occasions referred to the Environment Impact Assessment that was commissioned on the golf course. AX Holding's chairman, Mr. Angelo Xuereb, is reported as referring to this document as being very professional and that it is 3,000 pages long. All this does not impress us and did not impress MEPA which made the consultants change the EIA radically following a review by some social partners. What Mr. Xuereb fails to mention is that the EIA is unnecessarily bulky and that the study on social impacts does not do justice to what is being proposed. AX Holdings original EIA presented to the Planning Authority in Nov 2000 was lacking in logic and was severely biased in favour of the development. The EIA has had to be severely changed before being accepted for public review by the Malta Environment and Planning Authority. In its updated form the EIA clearly indicates why the golf course proposal should be rejected: The study shows : 1) that the proposal will have major negative impacts on the agricultural land in the area; 2) that the social impact on the farmers will be major and negative; 3) that the proposal breaches several Structure Plan policies and 4) that the proposal cannot be accepted because it goes against an international agreement between the Malta government and the Vatican state The proposal should be rejected outright by the MEPA Board when it comes up for consideration. |
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