News | Sunday, 22 February 2009

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Pressure piles on PM to close Caqnu’s quarry

James Debono
Nationalist stalwarts from Siggiewi are calling on the Prime Minister to close down a quarry belonging to magnate Charles Polidano ‘ic-Caqnu’, in an unprecedented move by the PN-led local council and the party’s committee.
The council’s resolution, calling for the closure of the Lapsi quarry, has been sent to Lawrence Gonzi, whose portfolio includes MEPA.
They are objecting to a planning application by Polidano Group to continue hardstone quarry operations in the picturesque area that faces Filfla, just a few metres away from the Dar Tal-Providenza home for the disabled.
The motion, proposed by deputy mayor Karol Aquilina, calls on MEPA to refuse an application to extend the hard stone quarry. It was approved unanimously by the council.
Both the council and the PN’s sectional committee are calling on MEPA to rehabilitate the site and restore it to its original state.
MEPA is currently also investigating the burning of a large quantity of tyres in the Lapsi quarry, following reports in sister paper Illum. In 2006, MEPA also had to issue an enforcement order against an illegal batching plant in the quarry, after a MaltaToday report.
In September the Siggiewi council approved a motion threatening to enact a bye-law that would prohibit trucks carrying stone and coarse aggregate, from passing through Triq Ghar Lapsi, the road leading to Polidano’s hardstone quarry.
The council claims that trucks leaving the quarry are leaving a trail of dirt, as construction material is allowed to fall from trucks on their way in or out of the quarry.
In 2006 the council also approved a motion urging MEPA to turn down the application and rehabilitate the site.
MEPA requires the developer to renew the quarry application every year. The Ghar Lapsi quarry is the largest hardstone quarry in Malta, with four modern crushers producing a daily average of 2,000 tonnes of sand and gravel for concrete mixing. Polidano Group claim in their website that the quarry will “still be operational well into the third millennium.”
But various policies in MEPA’s North West local plan recommend the restoration, landscaping and the reuse of these sites, and their rehabilitation for recreational purposes.
In 2001, the local council presented a report by Prof. Mario Vassallo to the Ombudsman, which argued that the Lapsi quarry should have never been permitted in the first place, and identified a number of illegalities on this site.

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