Dr Godwin Cassar, who served for several decades within the public service and contributed in a significant manner, advocating the need for comprehensive spatial planning, is one of  the recipient of this year’s Buonamico Award. He was instrumental in the late-1980s and 1990s in pioneering the establishment of the Planning Authority, later to be known as the Malta Environment and Planning Authority (MEPA). He spearheaded the formulation of a comprehensive Structure Plan for the Maltese Islands, Local Plans and several urban development and regeneration briefs.

Godwin was born in Valletta in 1948 and graduated as an Architect from the University of Malta in 1971. After two years in private practice, he spent thirty-five years in the public service, twelve of which were in public-sector housing development and a short spell of two-and-a-half years in roads development. Between 1987-1992 the focus of all his initiatives was the establishment of an effective up-to-date and comprehensive land-use planning system, including the development of a legislative, institutional and policy base incorporating a ‘state of the art’ national mapping function.

With the Works Department reform in 1992, he assumed the Directorship of the Planning Services Department which was subsequently hived off in October 1992 to become the Planning Authority where he was appointed Director of Planning/Chief Executive. Subsequent to the incorporation in 2000 of the then Environment Directorate within the Planning Authority which then became known as the Malta Environment and Planning Authority (MEPA) he was appointed as its Director General which post he held until his retirement in 2009.

Godwin is a Chartered Town Planner and Architect and Civil Engineer by profession. He graduated as Bachelor of Architecture at the University of Malta in 1971, completed a postgraduate diploma at the Bowcentrum International Education (Rotterdam) in Housing, Planning & Building in 1975 and was a 1991 Salzburg Fellow. He was elected Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute in January 1996 and in April of the same year he was elected Fellow of the Royal Town Planning Institute.

In July 1998 he was awarded the Honorary Doctorate by the Central University of England (Birmingham). Moreover, he served as a member of several local and international committees amongst which are the Senior Committee of Officials European Conference of Ministers responsible for Regional Planning (CEMAT); Chairman Minerals Advisory Board; member of the National Commission for Sustainable Development; member of the Church Commission on Cultural Heritage and member of the EU expert group on Urban Environment.

Dr Cassar is also the recipient of the Planning Authority’s 2019 President’s Award for ‘Outstanding achievement for services related to the Architectural and Spatial Planning’.