By James Tyrrell – Approximately a year ago I said that the ugly eyesore at Dwejra would not go away despite the protests of every right thinking person on the island. I predicted that the developer would simply wait until things cooled down a bit, resubmit his application and continue the work. Well this week Joseph Cassar submitted new plans for the infamous Dwejra interpretation centre which Mepa, surprise surprise now seems to be looked at favourably. In order to fully understand this situation we need to recap on the story so far.

This matter first reared its ugly head back in 1998 when Joseph Cassar applied to build a restaurant at Dwejra. The application was refused by Mepa and rightly so. He re-applied and again the application was turned down. Mr. Cassar then waited a couple of years and applied again in 2000. Once again Mepa refused to sanction the proposal. It’s interesting to note that at the time the Mepa case officer stated that such a development would impact the area visually, affecting the area’s natural beauty.

You would think by this time that Mr. Cassar would have got the message and given up, but oh no. As I’ve said in the past the trick is to keep applying and sooner or later the case officer in question will turn out to be a friend or relative! This brings us to 2006 when Mepa approved the Qawra-Dwejra Heritage Park. This however is where things start to fall apart. It seems that the Gozo Local Plan had identified the Qawra Tower as the location for the heritage park’s interpretation centre, but Mepa dismissed this option because the tower was not considered accessible to people with special needs.

Since this change from the original plans was not part of the Dwejra Life Project proposal, no funds were allocated for the new premises. The San Lawrence council on the instructions of Mepa then put out a call for any interested party owning land in the area who would be willing to host a new interpretation centre. This centre was seen as pivotal to the Heritage Park in order to deal with the large amount of visitors to the area. Anyway Mr. Cassar answered the call on the understanding that the centre would be a two-tier structure with the visitors centre on the bottom floor and a restaurant on top. This was agreed as a form of compensation for allowing the management committee of the park to use the new building as premises for the interpretation centre of the new park free of charge.

It was in fact Nature Trust who managed to get Mepa to halt the work on this monstrosity because they felt that it was not working according to the original plan. Nature Trust’s term as project coordinators of the Dwejra project expired on March 2007 and at present no site management agreement has been issued by the authorities. Therefore Mepa and the San Lawrence council are probably responsible for whatever happens at the site.

This whole situation has cause a rift between various NGO’s with the Ramblers Association issuing a statement saying, “The insult of the offending concrete cafeteria being constructed on the ridge adds to the injury that this heritage site has been made to suffer by the permission of illegal structures, under guise of boathouses.”

And that pretty much brings us up to the present day and the news that the developer Joseph Cassar has submitted new plans for Dwejra eyesore. Under the amended plans, the concrete pillars would be removed and replaced by a wooden structure, which would look like a terraced roof! A Mepa spokesman said, ‘the developer had now submitted an amended set of plans for the structure, which were a great improvement on what was originally submitted.’

Now the question I would like to ask is this, what exactly has changed at Dwejra between 1998 and now? If the Mepa case officer at the time thought that such a development would impact the area visually, affecting the area’s natural beauty, what is so different today? Concrete is a totally alien material set against the backdrop of Dwejra, so does anyone believe that a wooden structure resembling a terraced roof will fit in better with the locality? Or is this just a case of Mepa and the developers working hand in hand as usual?

James A. Tyrrell,

5 Lower Cairncastle Road,

Larne,

County Antrim,

N. Ireland BT40 1PG