Local Councils Are Not Customer Care

Picture a resident trying to pass along a pavement narrowed by platforms, barriers, menu boards, tables and chairs. The Local Council receives the complaint and forwards it elsewhere. Days pass. Nothing changes. That is customer care. Local government must do more.

A council is elected to represent a locality, protect its residents and use every lawful route available to it. Outdoor catering areas, usually called OCAs, involve several public bodies. That division of responsibility is real, but it cannot become an excuse for institutional silence.

The accurate position is simple: local councils are not the sole OCA regulator, but neither are they powerless.

One public space, several authorities

A permanent OCA on Government-owned public space normally involves separate processes: development permission from the Planning Authority, a Malta Tourism Authority licence and an encroachment concession from the Lands Authority. Transport and road-safety conditions may also apply.

Each permission has its own purpose. One approval does not replace another, and a defect under one regime does not automatically cancel every other permission.

That means a council cannot unilaterally cancel a Planning Authority permit, terminate a Lands concession or revoke an MTA licence. It also means the Council must identify the actual problem and send it to the body holding the matching power.

But referral is only one tool. It is not the Council’s whole function.

A council that only forwards complaints has reduced elected local government to a help desk.

The powers councils already have

1. Make an official planning representation

Article 33(1)(f) of the Local Government Act authorises a council to make recommendations to a competent authority on planning or building schemes. Article 33(1)(i) requires councils to advise, and to be consulted by, authorities taking decisions that affect the Council and its residents.

An official Council position should be discussed, authorised and placed on the public record. It is not a veto, but it enters the planning file, makes the locality’s evidence harder to ignore and tells residents how their elected representatives acted.

2. Every councillor can object personally

Article 71(6) of the Development Planning Act allows any person to declare an interest and make written representations on environment and planning grounds. That includes every mayor and councillor acting personally.

The representation must reach the Planning Authority within the published period. A late declaration is null and may not be considered. A councillor therefore has two distinct routes: submit a personal representation and move or support an official Council recommendation.

Silence on both routes is not proof of powerlessness. It is a choice not to use a voice the law already provides.

3. Preserve the Council’s appeal route

Under article 11(1)(e) of the Environment and Planning Review Tribunal Act, an interested third party that submitted a timely written representation may appeal specified Planning Authority decisions, including a decision on a development-permission application.

This is another reason an official Council representation matters. It does not guarantee standing in every dispute or a successful appeal, but it can preserve the ordinary third-party route. A Council that lets the representation deadline expire may lose more than the chance to comment.

4. Choose a Planning Board member for a major project

For a major project application, article 6(2)(h) of the Development Planning Act gives the affected local council a further role: it chooses a person who sits as a Planning Board member while that application is being deliberated and decided. The appointee cannot be a serving local councillor and the role ends with that application.

An ordinary OCA application will not normally be a major project. The provision still matters because it disproves the wider idea that councils have no place inside planning decisions.

5. Make locality-specific bye-laws

Article 34 of the Local Government Act permits a council to make, amend or revoke bye-laws to carry out its functions and prevent or suppress nuisances in its locality. Article 35 requires Council discussion and approval, transmission through the Executive Secretary, and gives the Minister a defined amendment and objection process.

An OCA-focused bye-law could regulate matters within local competence, including cleanliness, nuisance, management of local public space and safety procedures. It could not replace the Planning Authority, Lands Authority, MTA, Transport Malta or Police.

This is not theoretical. Sliema’s 2021 outdoor-catering bye-law placed cleaning and waste duties on catering establishments using outdoor space. Valletta itself announced a proposed bye-law in April 2023 to regulate tables, chairs and loud music during processions. The Mayor said existing rules could already have prevented the disruption and the bye-law would strengthen them. No enacted Valletta OCA bye-law from that proposal has been located.

6. Administer the limited temporary permit

Regulation 9 of the Activities Requiring Permit by Local Councils Regulations says that tables or chairs may not be placed in a street for catering on a day or specified days without a Local Council permit.

This route is limited. The permit may not exceed the duration of the activity or 16 consecutive days, whichever is shorter, and seven days must pass before another permit for the same area. It is not a substitute for a permanent OCA permission.

Within its proper scope, however, it is a direct Council permit, not a complaint forwarded to somebody else.

7. Use D006 where the condition applies

Transport Malta Technical Condition D006 states:

“The Malta Transport Authority and the Malta Police reserve the right to remove all tables and chairs as required for safety reasons and on special occasions. The local council may remove tables and chairs for safety reasons.”

This gives the Council an operational safety role where D006 forms part of the relevant OCA or road permit. It is a permit condition, not a universal standalone power applying automatically to every outdoor setup. The permit must be checked first.

D006 also contains an older 1.3-metre clearance figure. That must not be used to dilute the current OCA Policy’s standard S1, which requires at least 1.5 metres of clear pedestrian access and permits the authorities to require more.

8. Remove unauthorised advertising where LN 179/2025 applies

The Control of the Sale and Distribution of Tickets and Promotional Material from Public Spaces Regulations, 2025 give a competent authority and Local Council a conditional removal route for an advertisement connected to specified commercial promotion from public space where the relevant location or structure is not covered by the required licence or permit.

This power can reach an advertising board or another medium actually used to display advertising. It does not turn ordinary tables, chairs, umbrellas or platforms into removable advertisements merely because they belong to a business. The advertising function, public-space activity and permit status must be proved, and the regulations require an on-site inventory and fee safeguards.

9. Use the Council’s ordinary functions

Article 33 also places public-space responsibilities in the Council’s hands. These include street cleanliness and accessibility, proposals concerning pedestrian areas, safeguarding local identity and heritage, and protecting the natural and urban environment.

The Act does not say commerce must always win. Article 33(1)(v) expressly requires councils to cater for both the interests of shop owners and the needs of residents and consumers. Balance is a legal responsibility, not a slogan for approving every commercial demand.

10. Work jointly with other councils

Article 37 of the Local Government Act allows two or more councils to discharge functions jointly and arrange for those functions to be carried out by a joint committee or by an officer of one council.

OCA pressure is not confined to one locality. Councils can pool monitoring, planning knowledge and evidence, coordinate common positions and develop model bye-laws within their competence. This is a present statutory capacity, not merely a future reform. It does not transfer the powers of the Planning Authority, Lands Authority, MTA, Transport Malta or the Police.

What Valletta’s own record proves

On 18 June 2026, Valletta Mayor Olaf McKay said he had requested, months earlier, a bye-law on the size and dimensions of vehicles entering central Valletta during service-access hours. He said a first draft existed and the formal process could begin.

That statement proves something important. The present administration recognises the bye-law route, can request drafting and can move a locality-specific proposal forward when it chooses.

The accountability question follows naturally: if pedestrian, resident and heritage safety justified a vehicle-dimensions bye-law, why has the same seriousness not produced a completed OCA bye-law within the Council’s lawful competence?

The 2023 proposal makes the question stronger. Valletta had already identified tables, chairs and commercial noise as possible subjects of a local bye-law. Announcing it was not the same as enacting it.

A later Legal Notice cannot erase earlier inaction

LN 179/2025 created a conditional removal route for specified unauthorised advertising. It did not create the Council’s separate ability to make planning recommendations, object through a timely representation, make bye-laws, administer the regulation 9 temporary permit or use D006 where that condition applied. Those routes already existed.

Whenever a new or amended Legal Notice is presented as the moment when councils finally gained, lost or clarified a power, the years before that change must still be examined.

What did each council do before the change? Did it object to OCA planning applications? Did councillors object personally? Did it use its temporary permit, applicable D006 conditions, planning recommendations, motions, bye-law process and competence-matched referrals? Did it publish the answer?

If no action is recorded, why not?

The exact Legal Notice, commencement date and legal effect must be identified before anyone uses an amendment as a defence. The question is not only, “What can the Council do after the amendment?” It is also, “Before the amendment, why did the Council not act under the powers it already had?” A later change cannot retrospectively excuse a failure to use separate powers that already existed.

Existing limits are not permanent ceilings

Defending current powers is only half the task. Councils should also fight for stronger ones.

The Local Government Act already provides routes for that growth. Under article 33(1)(w), a council may agree with a public agency, body or department to receive delegated functions, subject to the required ministerial order in the Gazette. Article 33(1)(x) allows the Government to delegate other functions through the Minister. Article 33(3) expressly anticipates new functions, including pilot devolution to a small number of councils.

Councils can therefore demand:

• a formal, funded planning unit or shared regional planning service;
• mandatory Council consultation on OCA applications and policy changes;
• clearer access to permit plans, concessions, conditions and enforcement outcomes;
• delegated inspection or public-space management functions with legal safeguards;
• locality-specific OCA schedules and bye-laws addressing real street conditions;
• an express Council appeal route that does not depend on first registering as an ordinary interested third party; and
• where Parliament agrees, stronger voting or consent powers over developments with serious locality-wide effects.

These are reform demands, not powers councils currently possess. But elected councils should be leading that campaign, not presenting today’s restricted framework as the natural limit of local democracy.

What accountable councils should publish

Every OCA application should leave a public Council record:

1. the application reference, site and representation deadline;
2. the Council’s authorised position and planning grounds;
3. each motion, proposer, seconder and vote;
4. any personal representation declared by an elected member;
5. the permits, conditions and public-space measurements checked;
6. each focused referral to PA, Lands, MTA, Transport Malta, Police or another competent body;
7. the response, action, refusal or continuing silence; and
8. any follow-up, appeal proposal, bye-law action or reform request.

Article 33A(2) of the Local Government Act already requires each councillor to submit an annual report on work in the sector assigned to them, for inclusion in the Administrative Report. Portfolios should produce evidence, not just titles.

The same framework allows a councillor responsible for a sector to establish a committee, subject to Council approval of its members. An OCA, accessibility or public-space committee could gather residents, technical knowledge and application records before decisions are taken, not after damage is done.

For Valletta, that means the published minutes, motions, annual portfolio reports and planning files should show who acted on infrastructure, environment, UNESCO, cleansing, culture and community concerns when public space was at stake.

Those responsibilities are not abstract. The Council’s official allocation of functions, alongside the portfolios announced when the 2024-2029 Council took office, places capital projects, infrastructure and environment with Mayor Olaf McKay; UNESCO with Roberta Bonello Felice; cleansing with Raymond Azzopardi; and culture and communities with Daniel Diacono. A portfolio does not transfer another authority’s statutory power to that councillor. It does identify who should monitor the issue, bring it to Council and report what was done.

Local government is not measured by how quickly it forwards an email. It is measured by whether it represents, decides, acts and accounts for the result.

The choice facing every council

A Local Council cannot do everything. It can do far more than nothing.

It can object. It can recommend. It can convene, move and vote. It can make a bye-law. It can administer the permits the law assigns to it. It can act under applicable safety conditions. It can preserve evidence, coordinate competent authorities and expose non-response. It can demand delegated functions and campaign for stronger law.

Councillors were not elected to become a customer-care layer between residents and central government. They were elected to govern locally, defend the common good and make commercial activity fit the locality, not make the locality surrender to commercial activity.