Disused public toilet to be converted into three-storey building after deal with Żabbar band club headed by Labour broadcaster

In yet another taxpayer-sponsored handout to local band clubs, Għaqda Madonna tal-Grazzja Banda San Mikiel, which is based in Żabbar, has formally received the Planning Authority’s greenlight to convert a disused public toilet into a three-storey “multi-purpose” hall.

The band club successfully applied to convert the disused site into a hall which will feature a ground floor cafeteria and two “local purpose” halls on the first and second floors of the building. The application, PA/4144/24, was quietly approved well into the holidays at the end of last year.

The applicants got hold of the site in August 2022 when an undisclosed agreement was signed with the Lands Authority to “come into possession” of it. The site is located in Triq is-Santwarju, in a well-frequented area known as il-Venda l-Antika.

The Planning Authority’s (PA) case officer had originally recommended refusal of the application solely on the basis of an objection from the Commissioner for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, an accessibility concern that was later addressed and cleared by the same office.

No concerns were raised about the intensification of urban development within an Urban Conservation Area (UCA) nor the fact that a public amenity that could have been restored for use is now going to be converted into a venue with a private commercial element.

The band club’s president is TVM producer and former Labour mayor of Żabbar Quinton Scerri. who has benefited handsomely from prime time slots on a national broadcaster that continues to conceal how it spends taxpayer money and from rafts of direct orders awarded to companies in which he owns shares.

Scerri had resigned from his position as mayor in less than a year after he was accused of fabricating evidence in a hit-and-run case involving another local councillor.

Though the band club’s development is set to be as high as its adjacent building and will therefore not rise higher than its surrounding streetscape, it will nonetheless increase building density in a locality where residents tend to generally be protective of their town’s open spaces.

Just up the road from the band club’s latest project is Misraħ Tal-Madonna Medjatriċi, the town’s primary square.

Żabbar’s Labour-led local council staged a protest last month to reiterate its objections to an approved five-storey elderly care home in the historic square, which was approved by the Planning Authority despite significant opposition towards the application.

That protest was supported by former and current members of Cabinet, including Finance Minister Clyde Caruana and disgraced former ministers Edward Zammit Lewis and Carmelo Abela. Labour MEP and party deputy leader Alex Agius Saliba also signalled opposition towards the development.

The party’s selective outrage at the intensification of development within Żabbar’s core can at least partly be explained by the enormous influence that popular band clubs wield over local electoral districts.

Since the Labour Party swept to power in 2013, the government spent over €30 million to acquire the properties of 14 band clubs facing eviction following a Constitutional Court judgment which had effectively killed off low rent protections for properties with cultural significance.