Nationalist MP Marthese Portelli insisted in Parliament this evening that Wied Għomor should be properly rehabilitated and not further harmed through the proposed building of an old people’s home in a former quarry.
Speaking in Parliament, Dr Portelli said there was no doubt that old people’s homes were needed, but the environment needed to be protected.
Wied Għomor, near San Gwann, Swieqi and Ibraq needed to be rehabilitated, but Mepa should be careful not to contradict what it itself said in 2011 when it ruled at the time that the proposed project should not take up more than five per cent of the site of a rehabilitated quarry.
Now it appeared that the project would be bigger, taking eight per cent.
The access road would also need to be widened, to the detriment of the valley.
Dr Portelli said that while this development would not benefit the area, studies also showed that old people’s homes should be in the heart of towns and villages and this certainly wasn’t.
Developers have proposed a 133-room old people’s complex which would rise two storeys above the level of the quarry.