MEPA is in consultation with a developer who has applied to build a mushroom farm on land in a declared ODZ in Ta’ Dbiegi (limits of Kercem).

Actually access to it is within Gharb and the site adjoins the Craft’s Village. The fact that the planning application is given as Kercem would seem to be deceitful in its nature.

Tons of chicken manure, straw, horse dung, water, chemicals, and transport are necessary components to operate this scheme. The ammonia enriched chicken manure will be transported from locations throughout Malta and Gozo then mixed with dung in open courtyards on site. Apart from the known inconveniences resulting from the trucks passing throughout Malta and Gozo, there is also the channel crossing to contend with. Meanwhile the Craft’s Village tenants, the visiting tourists, The Kempinski Hotel and the neighbouring residents’ houses will have to suffer these smells, pollution and additional flies. All this expense and effort to cultivate mushrooms of which at least 70% will be exported to Malta.

For years mushrooms have been successfully cultivated in attics and cellars. Mushrooms need the dark to flourish and grow, hence the proposed buildings. Mushroom cultivation does not require open and arable farmland. Why is it that a developer insists on using virgin ground in an ODZ area, an area where tourists congregate? Are these self-same tourists not one of the backbones of our economy? If common sense prevails one realises that taking over 14 tumoli of land for a mushroom farm is not on, and I quote from the Gozo and Comino Local Plan, that this is ‘land that has been declared to be of good quality agricultural value and which lies within an area of high landscape sensitivity’.

MEPA has unequivocally declared that ‘it will not permit the development of any structure or activity which, would adversely effect the scenic value because it would visually dominate or disrupt its surroundings because of its mass or location or / and because it obstructs a pleasant and particularly panoramic view and / or introduce alien forms, materials, textures or odours’. This declaration is aided and abetted by the Constitution of Malta (section 9) that declares that ‘the State shall safeguard the landscape and the historical patrimony of the Nation’.

MEPA actually suggested and offered for consideration no less than twelve other suitable locations. They were successively turned down and the developer insisted on his choice and location being accepted to which it appears that MEPA has tentatively agreed.

Another MEPA declaration states, ‘that the Authority will not allow any development which would involve the excavation of large quantities of Blue Clay’. From figures submitted we know for a fact that the scheme will entail the excavation of no less than 43,200sq meters of Blue Clay and 10,000sq meters of top soil. This is major scarring. Removing the Blue Clay is of major significance. This will affect the natural flow of water down the Ta’ Dbiegi hillside and will certainly have a negative influence on the local water table.

The developer states that the site will be landscaped so that, as far as possible, the cultivation units will blend in with the surrounding rural landscape and further declares that the impacts on the landscape arising from the scheme have been judged to be insignificant.

The outcome of this scheme will become a by-product of a future industrial application of the land in question.

This scheme should be transferred to a disused quarry where the buildings would not impinge on the surroundings and the resultant smells can be contained.

Thank you.

Yours sincerely,

Bernard Storace

Gharb – Gozo

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