Returning the Festival Hotel site to its original state

Abstract

The graffiti-emblazoned murals of the Festival Hotel ruins, towering over the Foresta 2000 afforestation site and lying within a buffer zone of an Area of Ecological Importance (AEI), have assumed the status of a goldmine for some. In fact, a long dormant application to redevelop the site into a hotel was exhumed last May, so as to accommodate a number of villas, while previous applications for the same site made reference to a more mixed development. The Planning Authority recently issued an enforcement notice against the owners of the site for an ‘injury to amenity’, calling upon them to propose how to mitigate the situation, probably in view of the hazardous nature of the ruins. The enforcement notice is being contested by the owners.