Fate of historical gun battery still in the balance
James Debono The fate of St Peter’s Battery remains undecided, a full 18 months after the Malta Environment and Planning Authority issued a permit for the Smart City development in Ricasoli, limits of Kalkara.
“Discussions are still ongoing so as to seek the appropriate balance between the conservation cultural heritage and the proposed development,” a MEPA spokesperson said Monday.
In October 2008 the MEPA board postponed taking a decision on this issue, by appointing a committee to decide the fate of the battery.
The committee is composed of the developers, the Planning Directorate, the Superintendence for Fortifications, and the Superintendence for Cultural Heritage, with a remit to decide on this issue even if the positions between the developers and the heritage watchdogs seemed irreconcilable.
St Peter’s Battery, part of Malta’s ground defences during World War II, was originally earmarked for demolition to make way for 77 villas set in a 42,000 square metre rural site outside the boundaries of the former Ricasoli industrial estate.
But MEPA’s own Planning Directorate’s had called for the preservation of all four gun emplacements, the two magazines and the command post, in the case officer report prepared before the project was approved.
In a joint position submitted to MEPA in 2008, the two heritage watchdogs made it clear that the battery should be considered as “historical monument commemorating World War 2” and therefore should be preserved in its entirety.
“It should be emphasised that Maltese soldiers lost their life in this place while serving the country, and the battery should therefore be regarded as a monument in their remembrance.”
But the developers insisted that only three gun emplacements should be preserved. They have also presented a structural survey showing that the condition of practically all the buildings on the site are in danger of collapsing, after long years of neglect and lack of maintenance when the place was used as a cow farm and exposed to the corrosive influence of cow dung and urine.
“The only way that restoration can be carried out effectively, is that of the wholesale replacement of practically most of the buildings’ elements.”
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