Din l-Art Helwa is urging the Government and the Planning Authority to defer the upcoming hearing for the proposed Grand Hotel Excelsior extension (PA/10444/18), scheduled for next Thursday, the 16th of July, in view of Malta’s bid to extend World Heritage Site boundaries.

The call comes as Malta’s recent nomination to extend the UNESCO World Heritage Site (WHS) boundary to include the Knights’ fortifications is currently under formal evaluation by UNESCO’s advisory body, ICOMOS. A technical mission from ICOMOS was recently in Malta to assess the nomination dossier and will be submitting its report shortly.

DLH said that the Heritage Impact Assessment (HIA) for the Excelsior extension assessed impacts only on the existing, narrower World Heritage property of Valletta. ”However, in January this year, the Government announced it had formally submitted a nomination to extend the Boundary of the World Heritage Site of Valletta to become, the Maltese Fortifications of the Knights of St John, which explicitly includes the harbour fortifications on the Marsamxett side – the very setting of the proposed hotel extension.”

“It defies logic and common sense to take a final decision on a project of this scale at a moment when UNESCO experts are actively evaluating the very heritage values that this development could compromise,” said DLH Executive President Patrick Calleja. “The HIA is fundamentally outdated. It is based on the old terms of reference and fails to consider the immense new significance of the site within the proposed expanded World Heritage property. To proceed now is to gamble with Malta’s international reputation and the success of our own nomination.”

He highlighted the fact that the proposed extension, which includes a new eight-storey block, has already been identified as having an “unacceptable” visual impact on Valletta’s fortifications by the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage and the Planning Authority’s Design Advisory Committee.

The HIA itself acknowledges moderate adverse impacts on visual integrity, the Historic Urban Landscape, and the wider setting of the World Heritage City, said Calleja.

Din l-Art Helwa urged the Government and the Planning Authority to defer the hearing for PA/10444/18 until the UNESCO evaluation process for the fortifications nomination is complete.

File photo Conde Nast

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