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Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi has made it his personal crusade to see Malta increase its number of golf courses. First the Prime Minister was on record stating that he wanted two more courses one in Malta and the other on Gozo, and when the Malta Planning and Environment Authority threw out a proposal for a golf course on good agricultural land in Rabat, he asked the same authority to identify sites suitable for a golf course.
Angelo Xuereb, the man behind the proposal at Rabat spent more than Lm100,000 and almost ten years gathering information to show that the site he selected was the right one, and MEPA officials are now to identify sites within a month and a half. On Friday Xuereb called on the government to bypass MEPA and decide on the location of a golf course.
When MaltaToday contacted MEPA to ask whether it was reasonable that such recommendations could be drawn up in such a short time frame the reply was not pessimistic: “Although the deadline is tight, a team has been established composed of officials from forward planning, the Environment Protection Directorate and development control and the target is to deliver a draft report with recommendations on specific sites by the end of October 2004.”
If MEPA follows its own Structure Plan all the sites chosen should be on land that is degraded or in need of environmental improvement. Not that many such sites exist. One possible site, also mentioned by Tourism Minister Francis Zammit Dimech is that at White Rocks, where the governmeznt could reconsider its plans for the area.
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