DLĦ urges PA to defer Excelsior hotel decision ahead of UNESCO

Heritage organisation Din l-Art Ħelwa is calling on the government and Planning Authority to defer the 16 July decision on a proposed extension to the Grand Hotel Excelsior in Floriana, warning it could jeopardise Malta's bid to expand its UNESCO World Heritage Site listing. Malta submitted a nomination dossier earlier this year to transform the existing 'City of Valletta' listing into the 'Maltese Fortifications of the Knights of St John,' extending the designation beyond Valletta's walls to include surrounding fortifications and Knights-era defences at Mdina and Gozo's Cittadella.

The fortifications had been on UNESCO's tentative list since 1998. The current World Heritage Site boundary covers Valletta within its walls, with small sections of landward fortifications and Triton Square excluded. The Excelsior, built on the site of cemeteries destroyed in the Second World War, sits just outside that boundary but would fall within it if the expanded nomination succeeds.

The extension proposal includes a new eight-storey block. Both the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage and the Planning Authority's Design Advisory Committee identified the project's visual impact on Valletta's fortifications as unacceptable. The project's own Heritage Impact Assessment acknowledged a moderate adverse impact on the city's visual integrity.

Despite these findings, the application has been recommended for approval. DLĦ executive president Patrick Calleja said the Heritage Impact Assessment was no longer fit for purpose. "The HIA is fundamentally outdated. It is based on the old terms of reference and fails to consider the immense new significance of the site within the proposed expanded World Heritage property. To proceed now is to gamble with Malta's international reputation and the success of our own nomination."

Calleja added: "It defies logic and common sense to take a final decision on a project of this scale at a moment when UNESCO experts are actively evaluating the very heritage values that this development could compromise." Malta's experience with UNESCO boundary changes offers precedent. The Ġgantija Temples were listed in 1980; twelve years later, five additional prehistoric temples were incorporated and the listing was renamed the 'Megalithic Temples of Malta.'

DLĦ argues the Excelsior case calls for similar caution before a decision is finalised.