Arguments for and against an airstrip on Gozo have sporadically surfaced over the past 20 years. But has the Lawrence Gonzi’s ‘eco-island’ concept put the final nail in the coffin of yet another fad? James Debono on the proposal that never got off the ground
Controversy on building an airstrip in Gozo has raged over the past two decades as pressure by Gozitan business lobbies was fiercely resisted by environmentalists, leaving the Gozitans equally divided according to surveys.
Ironically it was the Labour Party which first proposed the construction of an airstrip in Gozo in its 1987 electoral manifesto. But in the mid-1990s, it was the Nationalist government which called for the development of an airstrip on agricultural land in Ta’Lambert, Xewkija, next to the heliport. Curiously, at that time the project was pushed by the Armed Forces.
But in its 1996 manifesto, Labour committed itself to stop the PN’s plans for the Gozo airstrip. In fact, one of Alfred Sant’s first decisions as Prime Minister in 1996 was to stop the airstrip, after withdrawing the country from the Partnership for Peace programme.
The project was abandoned by the re-elected Fenech Adami, only to be resurrected by Lawrence Gonzi in 2006 at a time when the government’s environmental credentials reached an all time low after the ODZ issue.
Commenting on the proposed airstrip Nature Trust President Vince Attard observed that “after the government approved a 2.3% increase in the development boundaries, one cannot but not become alarmed on the yet another 600 metres to be eaten up by a runway at Gozo.”
Over the years even the Labour Party has pussyfooted in its position. Prior to the 2008 election, while the party’s document on environmental policy excluded the development of an airstrip in Gozo, its document on Gozo did not. Labour exponents are themselves divided, with Gozitan Labour MP Anton Refalo in favour an airstrip, and his colleague, Gozitan MP Justyne Caruana, against.
One major obstacle to the project is the presence of archeological remains in the vicinity of the proposed area, some of which are allegedly covered by illegal dumping. Enforcement notices issued by the Malta Environment and Planning Authority regarding the illegal dumping of waste at the site have never been enforced.
According to the Superintendent for Cultural Heritage, the only official studies ever conducted on the area were carried out by the Museums Department in the mid-1990s.
“At the time it emerged that the footprint of the projected airstrip was to be located over an area almost entirely covered by recent dumping. This rendered the assessment of the land from an archaeological point of view virtually impossible,” Acting Superintendent Nathaniel Cutajar told MaltaToday in January 2007.
But a separate survey of the area under consideration, carried out by MEPA in 2006, claimed that “the preliminary archaeological survey did not register insurmountable problems as the area has been predominantly heavily disturbed. But this does not mean that surprises cannot appear during the intervention stage.”
Photos of a short stretch of cart ruts in the field next to the southern boundary of the heliport were also published on the website www.megalithic.co.uk. According to a British enthusiast posting on this site, “much of their length is now obscured by dumping created when the heliport was built.”
Xewkija is rich in archaeological remains, to the extent that archaeologist David Trump had noted “several fine pairs” of cart ruts in the olive grove west of the pumping station, just south of Xewkija, less than a kilometre away from the proposed airstrip. In 1948, newspaper Il-Berqa revealed that parts of these cart ruts were vandalised when explosives were used to clear the ground for the olive grove.
A Gozitan archaeologist who visited the site told MaltaToday that trenches connected to vine cultivation, possibly dating back to Roman times, and prehistoric cart ruts and monoliths are present on the site identified for the airstrip.
“In the environs of the heliport, one finds a number of stones, including two monoliths which could have been part of a larger structure dating back to prehistoric times,” the archaeologist said. He urged the authorities to conduct proper studies before considering any development in the area.
Archaeological remains in the area are already indicated in a map in the Gozo and Comino local plan but these remains lie either at the periphery or outside the affected area.
The Superintendence for Cultural Heritage has called for an environment impact assessment if an application to extend the Ta’ Lambert airstrip in Gozo is presented to the planning authority (MEPA).
The development of a fixed-wing landing strip at Ta’ Lambert is actually considered in the Gozo-Comino local plan but the same plan. However clearly states that before any decision can be taken on the matter, investigations must first be carried out of the developments impact.
This must of course include cultural heritage impacts.
The local plan also states that MEPA should assist the government in drafting the terms of reference for a study which should also explore alternatives to a hard runway such as the use of amphibious aircraft landing at Marsalforn.
It also states that no concrete evidence exists to demonstrate that a fixed wing service would be viable.
And despite the impression given by business lobbies that Gozitans are desperate for an airstrip, a MaltaToday survey conducted in July 2006 showed that the islanders are equally divided on whether an airport should be developed to link the two islands by air.
The idea of an airstrip in Gozo contrasts with the government’s promise of transforming Gozo into an eco island while promising a zero tolerance policy on ODZ development.
Writing a few months before being presented as one of the PN candidates in last June’s MEP elections Alan Deidun poured strong doubts on the need of an airstrip noting that the Mediterranean is replete with small islands not serviced by air and which retain their allure for this very reason.
“Take the Pelagian Islands. Lampedusa is serviced by air since it’s far from mainland Europe, but its sister island Linosa is accessible only by ferry” and describing the penchant for air travel to every cranny of the world as an environmentally costly fad “Airstrip proponents say that such an airstrip is not ecologically unsound - relatively large developments like airstrips are bogged down by the fact that they guzzle hectares of land”
But the government refuses to say no. Replying to a parliamentary question by Labour MP Anton Refalo in July 2009, the Prime Minister replied that it was awaiting a study conducted by the MCESD’s Gozo regional committee before deciding on this issue.
But ultimately the decision would be a political one. For proposing an airstrip on pristine land would be a major U-turn after the Gonzi conversion to green thinking.
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