Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1158119
JAMES DEBONO DETAILS on a permanent fish- farming zone in a massive off- shore area at the north-east point of Malta have been withheld by the Planning Authority. The application's site area of 3.5 square kilometre area, the ex- panse of 484 football grounds, is visible on the PA's geoserver web- site, but the details of the appli- cation are not publicly available, as is the case with a large number of applications reported by Mal- taToday since May when the PA took the unprecedented decision of stopping the publication of de- tails of applications it deems as "incomplete". When asked a spokesperson for the Planning Authority would not give any details about the nature of this particular ap- plication but pointed out that "since an Environment Impact Assessment has been requested" the process will include public consultation undertaken by the Environment and Resources Au- thority. "Once the EIA is concluded, the application will be validated and another round of public consul- tation shall take place with all the information avail- able at hand to the public." WWW.MALTATODAY.COM.MT WEDNESDAY EDITION €1.00 Newspaper post WEDNESDAY • 21 AUGUST 2019 • ISSUE 651 • PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SUNDAY EDITORIAL • PAGE 9 Accessibility issues on Gozo's 'fourth' ferry raise concern Italy PM Conte announces resignation, denounces Salvini as 'reckless' MV NIKOLAUS FOREIGN NEWS PAGE 3 ANALYSIS PAGES 6 & 7 PAGE 2 PAGE 2 Tiff with minister over book council's autonomy goes public on Facebook MATTHEW VELLA THE chairperson of Malta's national book council, Mark Camilleri, has broken ranks with the education ministry with a Facebook post revealing an internal feud over a forth- coming national congress for writers. Camilleri, chairperson since 2013, wrote of a disagreement with Education Minister Evarist Bartolo over the former's proposal to grant the NBC greater autonomy by raising the subsidiary legislation governing it, to an act of parliament in its own right. "Only an hour since our confrontation… his bureaucrats have frozen the NBC's money and issued an order that states that procedures on NBC budgets have to be ab- sorbed by the ministry," Camilleri stated on Facebook. Details of massive new fish farm zone withheld from public Offshore zone will cover area of 484 football grounds yet details of application will not be published before consultation takes place on environment assessment The present fishfarm area (smaller rectangle) compared to the new area (larger trapezium shaped site) PAGE 2 Mark Cammileri