Call for national policy on rubble walls

The building of concrete walls instead of the traditional rubble walls known as hitan tas-sejjiegh in the countryside goes against all the tenets of hydrology and ecology, Noel Farrugia, Labour Party main spokesman on rural affairs said yesterday.

If the countryside was not preserved, it would be harder to grow crops and harder still to attract eco tourists to Malta, he said. And a smaller amount of rainwater would be able to reach the aquifer.

"There is an urgent need to establish a national policy on the building of rubble walls whether they are built in valleys or elsewhere.

"Concrete is a barrier to water which goes to waste instead of being absorbed by the land to eventually reach the aquifer. Additionally, concrete hinders the growth of flora and fauna, which is the exact opposite effect of hitan tas-sejjiegh," Mr Farrugia said.

He said country lanes are now either asphalted or given a layer of concrete to afford an easier access to farmers and growers with heavy machinery to go through. Therefore, rubble walls would have to be built in a series of gabions, which are metal cages filled with stone to withstand the movement of such traffic.

These gabions are tied to each other to withstand also the rush and flow of rainwater and at times the weight of clay and waterlogged soil.

Such a system which, according to Mr Farrugia is employed on a wide scale in Europe, withstood the test of times and the elements - it is still standing after heavy downpours - after it was introduced in Chadwick Lakes to make up for the rapid destruction of boundary walls that had deteriorated over the years.

About two weeks ago, Mr Farrugia objected strongly to a concrete wall being built on the main road in Bingemma, limits of Mgarr. After his protest was featured in The Times, the Malta Environment and Planning Authority issued an enforcement notice ordering the works to stop.

"This enforcement notice is, however, not enough," Mr Farrugia argued, claiming that other concrete walls had been built without a development permit by Mepa, only to be eventually sanctioned by the same authority as has happened on the Mtarfa by-pass.

"How will the countryside look in a couple of years' time if this criss-crossing with concrete walls is allowed to go on?

"Concrete walls do not only go directly against all forms of common sense but make a mockery of the rules of hydrology and ecology," he added. Sections of rubble wall encased in metal cages built with the technical assistance of the Mediterranean Agronomic Institute in Bari, Italy, where introduced at Chadwick Lakes when Mr Farrugia was agriculture minister between 1996 and 1998.