From fields to car showrooms

Abstract

The total footprint of built-up areas in the Maltese islands, considered to hover around 30 to 35 per cent, is a statistic frequently bandied about when advocating a tighter control on further uptake of outside development zone (ODZ) areas on the islands. The figure is disproportionately higher than corresponding ones for other EU member states. One wonders, however, if the calculation of the statistic factors in ‘informal en croach - ments/disturbances’ which, though not constituting built-up areas per se, still represent areas where the former agricultural use has been lost. Such a loose category would include tolerated abuses which generally affect roadside areas (by virtue of their ease of access) such as unlicensed (since many actually are) boatyards, scrapyards, billboard platforms and, most recently, de facto car showrooms. While within urban areas, second-hand car vendors plonk their vehicles in any available parking space, much to the dismay of irate residents who fail to find parking spaces within walking distance from their residences, in rural areas the phenomenon involves simply using roadside fields. The more sophisticated abusers go as far as depositing a thin veneer of asphalt on the previous soil cover.