Following MEPA’s announcement that public meetings of DCC Boards will recommence on the 1st of April, one may question the reason behind the time-shift by which the DCC board hearings are to be held in the morning rather than in the afternoon as was the case until now. The MEPA website statement claims that this change in schedule will benefit the applicants, architects and objectors. While holding the hearings during working hours will help both architects and developers, it certainly will not help objectors, many of whom will not be able to miss work for such sessions.

This change also fails to consider NGO volunteers who are unpaid to do such work, giving up their own time to save the environment and heritage of our Islands. Moreover most of these volunteers have full time jobs, which make it difficult if not impossible for them to attend morning meetings.

Before the election, residents were promised greater public consultation and in fact the Mepa website states that this change in timetable is open for public consultation up to the 14th of May 2008, but surprisingly enough, the change in time-schedules for DCC meetings will commence on the 1st of April 2008. Could MEPA explain how this change was announced without even the pretence of consultation, still less information of how such a change in schedules will actually benefit objectors? Is this just another ploy to keep objectors out of the picture at the crucial moment when a decision on an application is to be taken?

A measure that would really help all parties would be that of allotting a fixed time to each case, as is already the practice at the Appeals hearings, thus eliminating waste of time for all parties. Instead, DCC cases are not heard in a fixed order but the time is set according to whim or according to when the applicant or his architect turn up, while objectors may have to wait from 1.30 pm until 6pm in order to be present when their case is heard.

This is just one of the many difficulties that an objector faces in trying to obtain justice on a very un-level playing field. No wonder the public has lost every shred of faith in MEPA. The change in DCC schedules is just another nail in the objector’s coffin and does not augur well for the increased rights that residents were promised at MEPA.