Bidnija farm permit is dead

The fight over the Bidnija “fake sheep farm” has moved from permits to enforcement. After a final court judgment confirmed that the development permit was revoked, Moviment Graffitti is pressing the Planning Authority to demolish the structure and restore the site in Wied tal-Ħżejjen.

That matters because the argument is no longer about whether the project should have been approved. On the account reported by Newsbook, the courts have now shut the door on the permit itself. What remains is the harder Maltese question: whether an illegal building in the countryside is actually removed, or simply left standing while the paperwork ends.

The permit at the centre of the case, PA/7946/18, was approved in 2019 for what was presented as a sheep farm. Newsbook reported that the project drew wider outrage only once construction was under way and the approved building became visible on the ground as a two-storey structure in a sensitive valley setting.

Environmental groups argued that the development breached policy and should never have been permitted. Their suspicion that the building was being used to secure a much larger rural structure was strengthened, Newsbook reported, when a separate application, PA/5895/22, sought to turn it into an agritourism complex with guest rooms, a breakfast or dining area, a retail outlet, educational agri-experience areas and a farmer’s residence. In that proposal, the sheep would have been placed in the basement.

That later application was first reduced and then withdrawn. Moviment Graffitti and Din l-Art Ħelwa then sought revocation of the original permit. The Planning Authority had argued that the application should be reprocessed rather than cancelled outright, but the Environment and Planning Tribunal upheld definitive revocation. An appeal followed, and then an attempt at a retrial. Newsbook reported that Judge Wenzu Mintoff dismissed that retrial request, confirming that it had no basis.

Graffitti’s conclusion is blunt: the structure is now “totally and definitively illegal” and must be removed. The group also warned the authority against trying to sanction the building through regulatory changes or other workarounds.

The sharper issue here is not the rhetoric around a “fake sheep farm”, but what the site has become in planning terms. A rural building can begin life on paper as agricultural infrastructure and end up, if scrutiny fails, as the shell of a much more valuable use. That is why demolition matters. Leaving the structure in place would preserve the physical advantage created by the original permit, even after that permit has been killed in court.

Newsbook noted that the Planning Authority has a poor record in tackling illegal development, with unauthorised structures often left untouched for years. That history explains why campaigners are treating the judgment not as the end of the case but as the start of a different one.

For residents, farmers and anyone using the countryside around Bidnija, the practical question is simple enough. If a permit is definitively revoked after a full legal fight, does the building come down, or does illegality remain standing in concrete?