Restoring residents’ right to peace and ending the ‘Build-Now, Sanction-Later’ culture
For too long, PL and the PN have allowed Malta’s big developers to set their own rules. Residents are woken by drilling at 6am, denied rest on Sundays, and watch helplessly as buildings rise around them while appeals against their permits drag on in the Tribunal. The two parties take turns blaming each other for the chaos, but it is the same chaos under both: a country where developers’ timetables matter more than residents’ quality of life.
Today, Momentum highlights three proposals to put residents and workers back at the centre of how construction is regulated in Malta.
Restrict construction working hours to between 8am and 5pm, from Monday to Saturday
Current construction hours are too long and too disruptive. Excavation, demolition, and building works begin before residents wake up and continue late into the day, every day, with no meaningful enforcement. The cost is paid by residents who cannot sleep, families who cannot hear themselves think, and workers who are pushed onto sites at unsafe hours. Momentum in Parliament will push to limit all building, excavation, and demolition works to between 8am and 5pm, Monday to Saturday, and will make sure to enforce these hours in order to protect workers’ safety and residents’ mental health from constant noise and disturbance.
Strictly enforce no building works on Sundays and feast days
There is already a rule against construction on Sundays and feast days. It is broken openly, week after week, because the authorities lack the will to enforce it. The result is that families have no protected rest day, no quiet morning, no time when their home stops being a building site. Momentum in Parliament will push for strict enforcement of the existing prohibition on construction work on Sundays and feast days, giving communities peace when they need it most.
Suspend all development works while an appeal is pending before the EPRT or the Courts
Malta’s appeals system currently allows construction to continue, and even be completed, while a permit is being challenged. This is the “build now, sanction later” culture in action: by the time the Environment and Planning Review Tribunal or the Courts deliver a judgment, the building is already up, the damage already done, and demolition has become politically and economically unthinkable. Momentum in Parliament will push to mandate that all works authorised by a development permit are suspended while an appeal is pending before the EPRT or the Courts, with clear and reasonable time limits set for resolving appeals so that proceedings conclude promptly while allowing all parties adequate time to prepare their case.
Arnold Cassola, Momentum candidate in the 9th and 10th districts, said: “Malta has been turned into one big construction site, and the people paying the price are the ones who actually live here. Residents cannot sleep, families cannot rest on Sundays, and when they try to challenge a permit, the building goes up anyway while they wait for justice. The country is being run as if developers were the only citizens that mattered. Momentum’s three proposals are simple: humane working hours, a real day of rest, and no construction while the Tribunal is still deciding. This is the Bidla ta’ Vera, we are promising”
There is hope, you can help!
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