A comment posted by ‘Markus’ earlier today

In 1987, after the PN were elected, an exercise was carried out to contain land for development and to reduce the speculation of the early 1980s which had been caused by the Labour government’s BDA (Building Development Area) measures which could result in development anywhere, depending on the ‘discretion’ of Public Works Minister Lorry Sant.

So frankly, this was a step in the right direction.

I was a student working within the Planning Unit (which was before the Planning Authority was set up) at the time. The instructions we had were to draw lines round the boundaries so as to freeze and control building speculation.

Many people who had bought land which had a building permit under Labour, and who did not develop that land before the government changed in 1987, lost those permits if their land was on the periphery of a town or village. So that land lost its value overnight.

In this case, the opposite happened, and land with no building permit suddenly became part of the building development zone, its value rocketing overnight. Wonder of wonders the building area ‘increased’ in the boundary line was restricted to the land belonging to Mintoff’s daughters and a bit of unavoidable extra.

It is very sad that such things have happened. This is a very serious case. Michael Falzon was the minister responsible at the time.

Steel Structures, one of the shareholders in GINWI Co Ltd, which bought the land from the Mintoffs, constructed the new balcony at the Labour Party headquarters. Did they send an invoice?