We have just had a glorious couple of weeks at our lovely home in Manikata and are returning to the UK.

The only thing that keeps spoiling our enjoyment and that of numerous other residents, in what was an idyllic village, is the deplorable state of traffic cutting through between Mġarr and Mellieħa.

I have written on a number of occasions on this subject to various governments in office to highlight the quantity and size of the vehicles using our country lanes, which include buses, coaches, trucks and cement mixers.

We now have a vastly improved Coast Road which funnels traffic to the roundabout leading to the St Paul’s Bay bypass. Once past this bypass, traffic finds it easier to take the road to Golden Bay and up through Manikata.

This compounds the amount of traffic going through Manikata. I am including two photographs which show the existing road configuration to the St Paul’s Bay end of Manikata, which illustrate a very simple solution to this problem.

In the first photograph, the existing road coming down from Mellieħa forks to the left behind the Richard England chapel. This should be upgraded to a bypass, which would prevent traffic from going through Manikata rather than motorists using the current route taking you to the road between the lamppost and the temporary container.

This solution will link the Mellieħa bypass to the St Paul’s Bay bypass and the Coast Road and finally we would have a strong and efficient route from St Andrews all the way up to Ċirkewwa. Let us get this one right before we dream of tunnels and bridges across to Gozo from Malta.

I voice the concern of most residents in Manikata and let us have a stronger and more strategic approach to ourinfrastructure problems and solutions.