A wall collapsed at a construction site in St Julian’s on Monday, severely damaging a parked car. An adjacent wall was also damaged.
Were it not for a resident who flagged the incident to us, the story might have passed unnoticed.
It is, after all, more rubble swept under the ever-expanding carpet of Malta’s building frenzy. This is not a one-off. It is the new normal.
Welcome to Malta 2025, where the background noise of jackhammers has become our daily soundtrack, and the ever-growing forest of tower cranes forms part of our national skyline.
Many of us have simply resigned ourselves to the idea that the entire country is one giant, permanent construction site.
The St Julian’s wall collapse wasn’t one of the biggest incidents we have seen. But we know it will not be the last. It is symptomatic of a deeper, chronic problem: a culture of impunity within the construction sector, enabled by weak regulation, a lack of enforcement, and a political system that appears more responsive to developers than to residents.
It is clear that unless a tragedy claims lives or blocks traffic in a major way, many incidents go unreported, unpunished. Most worryingly, we know that things will unlikely change.
In principle, no one disputes that construction is necessary. Countries evolve, populations grow, and infrastructure must adapt.
We also know that the construction is by its very nature disruptive. But what we are facing in Malta is a ruthless industry, sanctioned by an insensitive authority, frequently at the expense of the well-being of entire communities.
While it is understandable that a lot of construction is focused on tourist areas like Sliema and Buġibba, is it too much to ask for basic planning? Is it too much to ask for common sense when we see multiple large construction projects going on simultaneously within a barely one-square kilometre radius?
Is it fair that thousands of residents, tourists and commuters are forced to navigate broken pavements and blocked roads? The situation has become so bad in certain areas that the elderly or those with mobility challenges are reluctant to go outdoors.
What is equally galling is the lack of aesthetics. Does practically every construction site need to look like a bomb site? The absence of proper hoarding, dust barriers, or noise control is a glaring failure of policy and enforcement.
Other countries with active construction sectors manage to impose minimum standards to reduce the impact on residents and surroundings.
A visit to major construction sites in numerous European cities reveals how large-scale projects are often carefully concealed from public view, rather than left as unsightly disruptions in the urban landscape. For example, during the extensive renovation of the Burberry flagship store refurbishment in New Bond Street, London, the site was enveloped in meticulously designed hoarding that blended aesthetic appeal with brand identity.
But of course, these mitigating structures cost money!
The sad thing is that we have raised these proposals and concerns before – multiple times.
So have countless NGOs and residents’ associations. But each editorial, each protest, each letter to a planning board continues to be ignored.
There is a sense that money has become the only language our authorities understand in a country where developers and contractors seem to wield disproportionate influence at the expense of tens of thousands of residents.
This is not only a policy failure. This is a moral one.