NGOs call on MEPA to refuse Qala Creek project after change of plans

Published on the Malta Independent on Sunday 30th October, 2011.

As the developers who are proposing the highly controversial Qala Creek project, have axed their plans for one of the project’s main bones of contention, the yacht marina, in favour of a so-called swimming lagoon, a number of NGOs are now questioning the viability of the project that will not have what was meant to be one of its main cash cows.

Moviment Harsien Hondoq, Flimkien ghal Ambjent Ahjar, Ramblers Association, Friends of the Earth Malta, Nature Trust, GUG, Din l-Art Helwa and Wirt Ghawdex are however contesting the new plans on the basis that the developer’s 2009 report had insisted on the yacht marina as, the report said, “The project would struggle if it had to be developed as a stand-alone hotel”.

As such, the NGOs have urged the Malta Environment and Planning Authority to refuse the project and “to revert the land to its original designation as a nature park”.

The Qala Local Council, they say, has already looked into the various aspects of creating an environment and heritage park, a project they insist would draw tourists to Gozo and at the same support the existing hotels and catering establishments.

The NGOs point out that while the disputed project is expected to double Gozo’s five-star room capacity, the fact of the matter, they say, is that current demand for five-star hotel properties in Gozo is weak.

“The developers stressed the point that increased room capacity (oversupply) is of major concern to the market, and to be successful the hotel needs to be part of an integrated project with features that differentiate it from other hotels, i.e. the marina, thus ‘the hotel will depend on demand generated by other parts of the project’,” the NGOs highlight.

But they also note that when discussing revenue projections, the report’s 2007 version states: “The hotel on its own is not commercially viable. It can only succeed and be sustainable if it forms part of a much larger complex which will attract interest by potential patrons to reside at the hotel. The marina development could act as such an attraction.”

But, they point out that, in the 2009 version the statement had been modified to: “The hotel will be successful and sustainable if it forms part of a much larger complex which will attract interest by potential patrons to reside at the hotel. The marina development could act as such an attraction.”

“The wording has changed, but the meaning has not,” the NGOs claim.

They say, “In 2009 the developers themselves did not consider the hotel as viable without the marina, therefore the NGOs fail to understand how the developers can now eliminate the marina and claim that the complex would remain financially viable, as required by the Environment Impact Assessment.

“This eleventh-hour submission of new plans shows that the developers are intent on pushing through this venture in complete disregard of the social and environmental impacts of the project, ignoring the fact that the local community and also general public opinion has expressed itself against the project.”