The government is looking at building the long-promised pedestrian bridge over the Mrieħel bypass through a private-public partnership.

Approved by a planning commission last April, the footbridge will consist of two steel structures on either side of the road rising from a concrete base of about 10 square metres.

A spokesman for the Transport Ministry said the government “will be keeping its promise to build a pedestrian bridge across the Mrieħel bypass where residents still live in isolation due to lack of road safety”.

According to the planning report the structure will be made of anti-reflective steel and will feature metal perforated archi­tectural screening. Although, at planning stage, it had been pointed out that it “will inevitably be intrusive”, the whole design is modern and lightweight.

On January 30, the Contracts Department published a call for a pre-qualification questionnaire, the spokesman said.

This consists of a study assessing the suitability of a contractor or tenderer and includes environmental, health and safety and quality considerations.

Timelines will actually depend on the number and type of tenders submitted

The deadline for submissions is April 7, so “timelines will actually depend on the number and type of tenders submitted,” the spokesman added.

The pedestrian bridge has been long in coming.

The permit issued to Transport Malta last year replaces a previous one approved in 2009 but never used. The new design will take up less land than the old proposal, which had long stretches of zigzag ramps leading up to the footbridge.

The Labour Party had pledged to build a pedestrian crossing over this major road during the election campaign.

Qormi residents complained that they were cut off from the town centre when the bypass was built in the early 1990s.

Their plight gained momentum when two girls were killed while crossing the busy artery to reach their house a few years ago.

Plans by the previous admin­istration to build a pedestrian bridge never materialised.

Former Transport Minister Jesmond Mugliett once vowed it would be up by 2007 and the issue was raised again in Parliament in 2010 when then Labour MP, now President, Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca presented a motion asking the government to solve the problem. It was defeated.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.