The Structure Plan is the document that provides strategic guidance on land use in the Maltese Islands. Drawn up in 1990, its goals are three-fold:

1. To encourage further social and economic development of the Maltese Islands and to ensure as far as possible that sufficient land and support infrastructure are available to accommodate it.

2. To use land and buildings efficiently and consequently to channel urban development activity into existing built up areas particularly through rehabilitation and upgrading of urban areas thus constraining further inroads into undeveloped land.

3.   To radically improve the quality of all aspects of the environment.

Two extensive monitoring studies were carried out (in 1995 and 1997) to gauge progress in the implementation of the Structure Plan. Under the Development Planning Act 1992, as amended in 2001, the Malta Environment and Planning Authority is legally obliged to review the Structure Plan to address issues that are relevant now, or that will become relevant over the next 20 years.