Damage to Heritage

SURVIVED WAR, DAMAGED BY DEVELOPER

FAA deplores in the strongest possible manner the damage done to the old Tal-Grazzja Chapel in Sliema by intensive building works taking place some feet from its walls.

This new case of over-development damaging our country’s heritage wantonly, could have been avoided as neighbours had been warning that the excessive vibrations created by the use of heavy equipment had caused damage in far newer and stronger buildings nearby.

It is becoming increasingly obvious that certain building practices being adopted by contractors are simply not suitable for built-up areas, let alone Urban Conservation Areas. However rather than upgrading regulations, monitoring and enforcement, MEPA has starved its Heritage Unit of staff, leading to a lack of scheduling, although de-scheduling of protected buildings in order to demolish them has conveniently continued.

To make matters worse, new regulations have now been proposed to reduce the need of Environment Impact Assessments (EIAs). Had an EIA been commissioned on the Chapel site, the trenching and excavation works might not have been allowed so close to the chapel, while core sampling to check on the stability of the ground might have avoided this damage.

While it appreciates Government’s recent restoration drive, FAA stresses that it is no use spending thousands of liri of taxpayers’ funds on laboriously restoring Malta’s architectural gems, only to have them impacted by poor planning, inadequate regulations and developers’ heavy-handed methods. This chapel which had recently been restored now has wide-open cracks of 3-5cm up both walls and across the dome which is dangerously imperilled.

Unfortunately this is not a unique case of state/private neglect. The siting of a fireworks factory near the ancient San Dimitri Chapel in Għarb is a prime example of wilful endangerment. In spite of repeated calls for their preservation, the Punic tombs at Ras il-Wardija, along with the Roman remains at Ras il-Pellegrin and Ras ir-Raħeb, will soon disappear altogether due to a combination of neglect, erosion and damage from hunters and trappers. The ‘Villa tal-Isqof’ at Wied l-Isqof, limits of Rabat, is tumbling down, its unique architectural features soon to be lost for ever. Late medieval chapels all over

Malta and Gozo lie abandoned and the advanced rate of deterioration of possibly the oldest one, by the Xewkija Heliport, has been highlighted time and time again and yet no action is taken.

Sliema’s oldest landmark, the tal-Grazzja chapel, has survived one of the very first bombings of the Second World War, only to be declared unsafe thanks to over-intensive development almost seventy years later. While fine words are regularly regurgitated at official functions, Malta, its people and its tourist industry continue to lose more heritage through this so-called ‘development’ than through four long years of enemy action.