In a study carried out across the EU it is estimated that it will take a million (wo)man years to achieve compliance with the new regulations on the energy efficiency of properties. It means jobs and work for whoever wants it. It means money and money well spent on salaries and materials which insulate not only against heat and cold but also against the rising cost of energy.
Malta also has its share. It also has much, much more. With over 192,000 properties 40% of which require significant repairs, how many man or woman years would it take to get them up to scratch? It is not my field to make such estimates but just one look around me tells me that nobody in the construction industry will ever be out of a job if we ever get going.
It is clearly our future. With a surplus of 53,000 properties which can never be occupied because we would not be able to withstand the influx of 100,000 and never be able to supply them with basic water and electricity services, new building is bound to be reduced to an absolute minimum in the very near future.
Ironically the shift from new construction to maintenance and restoration was the express policy of a Nationalist Minister: Michael Falzon in 1988. Nothing serious was ever done about it. We continued to expand greenfield take up right up to the bizarre extension of development zones in 2006. Or was this the plan, to drive the country far over sustainable limits until the shift to restoration and maintenance becomes inevitable? What a way to govern a country?
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