Despite Planning Minister Stefan Zrinzo’s jovial disposition on a recent Xtra TV programme, where he extolled the positives of the current planning regime on the island, he too, hand on heart, will admit that the situation is not as rosy as he depicts it to be. Actually, the current planning regime is a system designed and skewed in favour of development. Let me pan this out. The minister listed the right to object to proposed development as one of the strengths of the current planning regime. Actually, such a right has been ingrained within the legal framework underpinning the Planning Authority since time immemorial and, most importantly, it is not the granting of this ‘right’ on paper but its actual and effective implementation. It is useless paying lip service to the “sacrosanct right to object to development” when objectors’ legitimate (not frivolous ones) concerns are constantly shunned and given the cold shoulder. A case in point – only last June – the Planning Authority approved Joseph Portelli’s despicable Xagħra valley pool development despite the deluge of complaints being submitted. So how, exactly, are objectors’ voices being heard, Minister Zrinzo? More a case of...