“Spin Valley Discotheque” has claimed its first victim: George Micallef, the Malta Tourism Authority official hired as consultant by developers DJRL Ltd to present a report to MEPA on the controversial application.
Micallef, who tendered his resignation yesterday, was named as the MTA official responsible for a lengthy report presenting reasons to justify the proposed Mistra development. In his damning report into the case, published on Monday, Mepa auditor Joe Falzon identified this MTA report as a crucial step in the planning authority’s bizarre decision to ignore its own policy guidelines and grant a permit in clear breach of the Development Planning Act. According to Falzon, Micallef’s report “definitely had a bearing on the decision of the DCC (to grant the outline permit).”
According to the original planning application, the nightclub would have occupied 2,000 square metres of arable land lying entirely outside the development zone, in an area earmarked as a Natura 2000 site. A subsequent development application was submitted for a development double the size (8,000 sq. m.).
The land in question belongs to Nationalist MP Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando.