No green light yet for St Paul Street upgrading project

The project to upgrade St Paul Street, in Valletta is still awaiting a permit from Transport Malta enabling the contractor to start the work.

According to the transport watchdog, the local council only submitted a traffic management plan last Friday afternoon, less than half a working day before work was meant to start.

Preparatory work on the lower end of the busy street, including what is known as cable detections, started on Monday but the actual digging was meant to start on Wednesday or yesterday, by when the contractor was hoping the traffic management plan would have been approved.

However, the green light had not been given by late yesterday afternoon and work could therefore not start. Transport Malta has warned V&C Contractors not to do any work that involved closing any part of the road unless the plan was approved.

The project was originally meant to have started in the first or second week of August, according to information given by the council in a meeting with the Chamber of Small and Medium Enterprises – GRTU, which asked to discuss the matter because of the impact the project would have on shops in the road and in the surrounding area.

The council has promised to “ensure that the inconvenience and temporary loss of parking spaces are kept to an absolute minimum”.

After coming under pressure on the bad timing of the planned road works, the council postponed half the project to next year.

Valletta mayor Alexiei Dingli had originally defended the council’s decision to close off the street in August, saying it was the quietest time to do such work. However, the business community, residents and operators in the tourism sector shot down the planned project, saying August was a bad choice. The council then decided to postpone that part of the project towards the top, and busiest, part of the road.

Since the lower part of St Paul Street intersects with other roads, which the council was planning to resurface, such as St Nicholas Street and Old Hospital Street, the council decided to start work on this part of St Paul Street. The council plans to divide the work on the lower end of the street into two phases, the first one between Hospital Street and St Dominic Street and the second phase between St Dominic Street and Archbishop Street. The stretch is 120 metres long.

Work on this part of the long street is expected to take about 10 weeks and the whole project, including one the council says will be carried out next summer, is expected to cost €160,000.

The project includes cleaning rain water culverts, laying of new water mains, paving, new services and resurfacing the road.

Council executive secretary Gabriella Agius said the council had met other entities, including the Water Services Corporation, Enemalta Corporation and service providers Go and Melita. It was agreed that a representative of the Superintendence for Cultural Heritage will oversee the work.

Reacting to complaints by residents made through The Times, Ms Agius said community meetings were held for residents in February and March, during which they were informed of the council’s plan to carry out work on certain roads in the city, including St Paul Street. She said no one had complained during the meetings, some of which were poorly attended.

She said work on the rest of the road, between Castille and St Paul’s church, would be carried out between Easter and summer because of various events during which St Paul Street would be busy, including Christmas, the feast of St Paul in February and Good Friday processions.