Following the controversy of last year, the Ghajnsielem Local Council with the support and assistance of the Ministry for Gozo and together with the local NGOs and Ghajnsielem Parish have announced that they will be working together to organise another edition of ‘Bethlehem f’Ghajnsielem,’ for the 2013 Christmas season.

An action committee has now been formed, they said, in order to oversee the construction and animation of this very popular Nativity village. More details will be announced in due course.

Last year the planned opening of the Nativity village did not take place “because of logistical problems,” the ‘Fondazzjoni Bethlehem f’Ghajnsielem’ said. They are responsible for the production of this event and had explained that the village entailed substantial work in the assembly of a number of structures every year in the fields at Ghajnsielem.

“The structures have to be assembled in the months leading to December and dismantled in January. This was creating extra pressure on the volunteers, most of which are also involved in other local NGOs,” it said.

Fondazzjoni Bethlehem f’Ghajnsielem said at the time that “the Ghajnsielem Council had applied to MEPA to have the fields converted into a recreation park which can be used for Bethlehem f’Ghajnsielem in December. Most of the basic services and structures will thus be retained from year to year. A permit is still being awaited.”

MEPA in reponse at the time said that it “can confirm that the meeting recently held between the Council and the MEPA Chairman was not to speed up planning procedures pertaining to the Bethlehem Nativity Village in Ghajnsielem, as the council is stating, but was related to the Council’s planning application for the proposed development of a recreational rural park in the area known as Ta’ Passi.”

The Authority added that it “finds it unjust that the local council is using the popular cultural event of the Bethlehem Nativity Village to try putting public pressure on the Authority to ensure that its recreational park application is processed without all the necessary environmental studies having been carried out and assessed, when the two have no direct bearing on one another.”

MEPA said it “reiterates that the Bethlehem Nativity Village was always organised with the Fondazzjoni Bethlehem f’Ghajnsielem simply applying through a development notification order (DNO). Nothing has changed over the months for the same fast and simple procedures to be adopted by the organisers of the Bethlehem Nativity Village, if they wish to organise the event this year.”

“The local council knows that its application for the development of a recreational rural park does not yet have a planning application number (PA), for the simple reason that it has taken the Council months for it to submit all the necessary studies, project description statement and fresh plans.

“The local council should abide by the same regulations and procedures that other applicants need to follow when submitting an application which is primarily located in a sensitive site, outside the development boudaries,” MEPA concluded.

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