Planning provision for sport in the Maltese context

Abstract

The purpose of this dissertation is to discuss the place of sports in the planning process. Sports has always had a low priority in the planning process, regardless of the fact that one of the earliest reasons for promoting town town planning was the loss of open space as it was sold for residential development. Indeed, most of the forces that have worked to shape the planning system have also, largely inadvertently, served to marginalise the place of sport within the system. Equally, when the value of a particular use such as sports us largely social, and consequently not recognised by the market, it is destined to be no more than a residual use of land that has no other value, whether in the town or village. The only method of ensuring that this social value is taken into account, therefore, is for the State to develop land for that use.