Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1536175
KURT SANSONE ksansone@mediatoday.com.mt JAMES DEBONO jdebono@mediatoday.com.mt 9 NEWS maltatoday | SUNDAY • 8 JUNE 2025 Social Climate Fund Public Consultation Have your Say! Planning appeals reform still in the making PLANNING Authority CEO Jo- hann Buttigieg had promised in March that a reform to the plan- ning appeals system will be in place within three months. This self-imposed deadline will lapse by the end of the month but as yet no such reform has been an- nounced. A PA spokesperson confirmed that the revision of the law regu- lating planning appeals has "been completed". But an assessment is still ongoing to determine how the tight timeframes will impact the courts. "The revisions of the Act have been completed, and we are cur- rently ensuring that the courts will be capable of meeting the time- frames that are to be included in the proposed Act," the spokesper- son said. The reform will ensure a pause in work on projects that are under appeal. This will prevent the erec- tion of structures whose permits are later revoked by either the En- vironment and Planning Review Tribunal or the law courts. "I want to ensure the prime min- ister's proposed appeals reform is enacted within three months," Buttigieg had told MaltaToday last March. Buttigieg had said the reform would pause work on projects appealed by NGOs and other en- tities for four months. The pause would apply while the EPRT makes its decision. If the EPRT's decision is further ap- pealed in court, the suspension would be extended by an addi- tional three months. Currently, appeals are rarely resolved that quickly, with some taking over a year to be decided. The reform of the appeals sys- tem has been under discussion since May 2023, when the prime minister first proposed it in his Workers' Day speech. In Sep- tember 2023, Cabinet approved a draft reform and launched a pub- lic consultation. Environmental NGOs warned against putting additional pres- sure on the institutions dealing with appeals by imposing tight deadlines, while developers and architects argued in favour of strict timeframes to avoid unnec- essary delays. Planning Authority CEO Johann Buttigieg Driving test failure rate worsens in 2024 MORE than half of driving test candidates in 2024 did not pass, as the failure rate worsened when compared to 2023, figures tabled in parliament show. From the 19,488 people who took the driving test last year, 10,598 did not pass. The failure rate equated to 54%, a three- point increase over 2023. The information was tabled by Transport Minister Chris Bonett in response to a parliamentary question by Nationalist MP Ivan Bartolo. The figures show that from the 8,890 who did pass the test in 2024, 55% did so on their first at- tempt, while 26% passed on their second attempt. There were 12% and 7%, who passed the driving test on their third and fourth at- tempts respectively. Another parliamentary re- ply from November last year, showed that 16,601 took the driving test in 2023 and 8,464 did not pass. The failure rate in 2023 stood at 51%. Of the 8,137 who did pass the test in 2023, 66% did so on their first attempt, 23% on their sec- ond attempt, 8% on their third attempt and 4% on their fourth attempt or more.