Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1481355
6 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 9 OCTOBER 2022 NEWS We are recruiting! Reading Recovery Resource Leaders (full-time) (Jobsplus permit 218/2022) For more information on the role, eligibility criteria, and how to apply visit education.gov.mt/nla or send an email to nlarecruitment@ilearn.edu.mt or call on 2598 3325. Application deadline - Friday 21st October 2022 at noon. JAMES DEBONO A dilapidated building oppo- site Valletta's Peacock Gardens, overlooking the Marsamxett harbour, is being earmarked for demolition to be replaced by a 29-room "5-star superior bou- tique hotel". But it's the contemporary de- sign proposed for this hotel – characterised by long and nar- row glass apertures – that will get people talking. Apart from the extensive ex- cavations in what is an archae- ologically sensitive city, this particular area in Valletta had previously been earmarked for another bold design back in 2010. But that planning re- quest,. filed by none other than the Valletta local council, was withdrawn following a storm of controversy on the hotel's presumed impact on the adja- cent 'Mattia Preti' house – said to have once been home to the 17th century Italian Baroque artist. The new proposed develop- ment will include three base- ment levels, and five storeys that will house a café, wine bar, conference area, a restaurant and a spa. Proponents GP Borg are one of the island's main sup- pliers of ready-mixed concrete and concrete blocks. The group declared fully owning the site in the application. Mariello Spiteri, a planning consultant who previously served on a PA decision-mak- ing board, is the architect of the project. The plan includes restoring the Preti palazzo, but the Grand Harbour local plan identifies the site as a residential area, and the Preti building is actually deemed to have no heritage value while being in a state of deterioration. In 2016, the Planning Au- thority refused a permit for a five-storey terraced house on the site, after strong objections by the Superintendence for Cul- tural Heritage, which shot down the "aesthetically unacceptable and incompatible" design for the World Heritage Site's street- scape. Moreover, the increase in height would have created "a high and unsightly blank wall" directly over an adjacent sched- uled property. But following an appeal to the Environment and Planning Review Tribunal, a permit was issued in 2020 for the construc- tion of a terraced house of three floors and a receded floor. In the new hotel application, the five-storey build will be as high as that first proposed in 2016, with the difference that additional storeys will also come with a contemporary design for an adjacent, older building, eliminating the blank party wall. The building is flanked on Does this look good on Marsamxett? Boutique hotel challenges vistas Concrete company wants contemporary look for five-star hotel with long, narrow glass apertures The proposed hotel can be seen in the middle of this diagram, with its narrow, long apertures marking a radical departure from the timer balconies of old Marsamxett. Will it pass the muster for nostalgics and lovers of Valletta? LU KE VELLA ACTIVISTS and journalists mounting a challenge to im- prove government media re- form laws, have joined the call for an open public consulta- tion on laws discussed by a government-appointed com- mittee of newspaper editors, owners and academics. The journalists, which in- clude former Newsbook edi- tor Fr Joe Borg, styled as Me- dia Reform Initiative, called on the Institute of Maltese Journalists to drop out of the government-appointed media committee of experts if this did not happen. MRI said that the ongoing support for public consulta- tion on the proposed media re- form indicated that the reform was full of defects and did not effectively protect journalists. "These demands for public consultation also show that no one is believing government when it says that it has already carried out a public consulta- tion," MRI said. Justice Minister Jonathan At- tard unveiled three Bills that will be presented to the House, after receiving feedback from a government-appointed com- mittee to analyse the state of journalism in Malta. Not all recommendations were taken fully on board in the resulting, tweaked laws presented by At- tard. In a letter signed by over 100 editors, journalists, academ- ics, artists and others, Prime Minister Robert Abela was asked "to immediately publish the advice you have already re- ceived from the experts whom you appointed and, before you present any legal proposals to Parliament, to publish the government's intentions for open and effective public con- sultation." The Commissioner for Hu- man Rights of the Council of Europe, Dunja Mijatovic, in- ternational press freedom or- ganisations, and the European Centre for Press Media Free- dom have also asked that the reform conforms with inter- national standards. An alert has also been raised on the Platform for the Pro- tection of Journalism and Safety of Journalists, which is part of the Council of Europe's initiative against misinforma- tion and threats towards inde- pendent media. MRI said that during a public consultation meeting organ- ised by the Institute of Mal- Media reform: journalists want IGM to force public consultation, or quit committee Journalists from the Media Reform Initiative say ongoing calls for public consultation indicates that a proposed media reform is defective and does not effectively protect journalists