ittra

SAMPLE LETTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER

Send your letter to:

Office of the Prime Minister
Auberge de Castille
Valletta CMR 02, Malta

Or by e-mail:
Prime Minister: [email protected]
CC: [email protected]

Hon. Prime Minister of Malta
Dr. Lawrence Gonzi
Prime Minister of Malta.

Dear Prime Minister,

Re: proposed 18 hole golf course at Verdala, Rabat

I am writing to express my concern at the proposed golf course development at Verdala (Tal-Virtu').

The construction of golf courses on good agricultural land, such as that at Verdala would be contrary to the clear and rational prohibition in the Structure Plan. While the Minister of Rural Affairs and the Environment pleads for an urgent and holistic review of water policy, golf courses are clearly unsustainable in a water short-island such as Malta and will exacerbate an already problematic situation.

The context in which this development is proposed is that of a country subject to permanent drought conditions allayed only by the expenditure of 11% of all energy produced in the country (based on imported oil) on reverse osmosis plants to produce 50% of the country's drinking water supply. A lawn is an anti-social extravagance in such conditions.

A golf course such as the Verdala project with 2.2 square kilometres of fairways beggars description. According to recent figures on water supplies in the Mediterranean released by the World Wildlife Fund, a golf course of this size could consume between 220 to 330,000 cubic metres of water a year.

The recent European directive on Strategic Environmental Assessments obliges your government to compare the net economic, social and environment costs of this type of project against those of other alternatives.

Malta can offer many alternatives to generating a far greater number of additional tourists and tourist expenditures than the numbers posited in AX Holdings� speculative and technically unsound 'forecasts'.

It is these non-golf alternatives which need to be carefully evaluated, in terms of net economic, social and environmental benefits to the nation before any decision about development of golf courses anywhere in the Maltese islands is taken.

According to all available information, no statistical sampling survey has been made either of golf holiday tour operators, of incoming tourists to Malta, or of the Maltese public, to establish whether an additional golf course in Malta (added to the 317 already in existence around the Mediterranean) would have any chance of being commercially viable.

Moreover, the progressive impact of climate change in the Mediterranean region will exacerbate the water scarcity situation. Any future tourist development must be predicated upon minimal and highly efficient use of our already scarce water resources. This is indeed the thinking underlying Malta�s recent First Communication to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and its related National Climate Change Strategy.

The fact that the Verdala developer, AX Holdings advertises his residential and hotel
development as adjoining a proposed but so far non-existent golf course long before any permit for this development is issued is deliberate misrepresentation on an international level. The crucial facts that the land in question has not yet been acquired by the developer and is held by Government subject to the special conditions (Article 2.1) of the treaty with the Holy See and subject to the rights of tenant farmers is not mentioned in the relative advertising. No mention is made either in such advertising that the proposed golf course development is directly in violation of a number of provisions of the Structure Plan for the Maltese Islands in terms of which any related permit must be issued.

You must surely recall that since its construction the Verdala Hotel has been dogged by recurrent failure. I understand that Intercontinental Hotels, which was on the point of taking over the management of the hotel, decided that it would not be commercially viable, and withdrew from the project, as did Regent Hotels International last year. According to available information we cite without prejudice, it appears that AX Holdings has not found any other international partner for the hotel, and is hoping to involve local investors.

Besides, you will surely recall as well that the present development has received a recommendation for refusal by the Planning Authority's technical directorate. Should the Verdala hotel and adjoining course fail commercially in the event of a permit being issued for the golf course, this will have an immesurably greater environmental and social fallout than has occurred in previous attempt to operate a hotel at this site.

A failed golf course of 72 hectares in a country having less than 12,000 hectares of arable land is a risk Malta cannot afford to take, a risk which alone justifies the constantly mounting popular opposition to this project.

Regardless of impartial technical advice, the developer has persisted obtaining permits outside development zone and further committed infringements to the permits, granted destroying a natural ridge at the duplex suites extension of the hotel and proceeding with laying of concrete foundations at the Verdala Mansions extension regardless of the Planning Authority stop notice.

If the Verdala golf course is given the green light, the farmers' forced eviction by your Government would surely be the most insensitive form of ingratitude towards men and women whose devoted toil has kept alive an agricultural tradition inherited from their ancestors.

I hope that good sense prevails in the golf course issue, thus saving a truly panoramic agricultural area and fitting environment for the historic city of Mdina, as well as demonstrating that Malta honours its international treaty obligations and international commitments to sustainable development.

I appeal to you not to support the Verdala golf course project and to commit your Government to an effective sustainable development policy to the long-term benefit of the country.

Yours truly,