Shops pop : is there a stop?

Abstract

After the approval of a proposed supermarket one of the most tranquil of Maltese villages - Safi - I wonder if a supermarket in Mdina might well be a prospect in a few years' time. In an article in The Times of July 15, 2002, the Malta Environment and Planning Authority's Structure Plan Review (SPR) team had mused about the observed upsurge in retail activity. It said that although the combined local retail activity amounted to a staggering 640,000 square metres (or 25 football pitches), Mepa approves an annual 60,000 square metre surge. Before that article, the Retail Topic Paper had been issued, as part of the SPR process - such a paper had also prophesised that ad-hoc retail development within existing centres and continued expansion of the supermarket and showroom sector is likely to continue. What the paper failed to predict was that Outside Development Zone (ODZ) areas would be rampantly pillaged as a result. In fact, one of the three main guidelines of the same paper was that new retail development would as far as possible be located within existing town centres.