Classification of residential roads

Infrastructure and Transport Minister Austin Gatt on Tuesday gave Parliament a detailed insight into how Transport Malta decides on priorities in the construction and surfacing of roads.

Answering a question by Government Whip David Agius, he specified that by the term "residential street" the authority meant streets in urban areas where there was residential housing and which had never been surfaced with tarmac. By law this made them the responsibility of central government.

Even among residential streets there were three major priorities. Streets that had never been surfaced were given priority over others that had already been surfaced but needed resurfacing and which strictly speaking were the responsibility of local councils, but which the government was committed to surface itself.

Another priority were streets of which at least 75 per cent were covered by housing.

The third priority accorded to streets which would cost less to do, so that available funds would go further.

Once work on such streets was completed from the original list of more than 500 laid on the table of the House some years ago, there would be 87 residential streets still pending at a cost of some €4.5 million and 41 others whose resurfacing was the responsibility of local councils but which would be taken care of by the government.

Dr Gatt said that over the next 12 months Transport Malta would be finishing work on 137 residential streets at a cost of around €4.45 million. He pointed out that in the first six months of this year, 46 such streets had already been completed at a cost of €1.7 million.

Besides the construction of roads from EU funds, during the current legislature up to last month 323 streets had been worked on at a total cost of €12.09 million.