Birkirkara residents have been angered by ineffective efforts to patch individual potholes in a street that has drawn complaints for years, with one claiming the latest efforts have been a “complete waste of money”.
Photos and video sent to the Times of Malta show a single worker in Bontadini Street pouring cold asphalt into potholes from a sack and crudely attempting to level and compress it with a handheld rake.
Despite standing in the middle of the road to complete his task, the worker was not wearing a high-visibility vest or taking any other precautions to alert oncoming vehicles. Residents said that the haphazard patching job had started coming undone within mere days as cars passed over the recently filled potholes.
“It’s a total disgrace,” said Matthew Borg, a Birkirkara resident who owns a business in the street. “This is a major artery, and in its current state, it’s a big danger for drivers and anyone crossing the road.
“It’s been like this for years.”
This is a major artery, and in its current state, it’s a big danger
Mr Borg, whose partner’s car recently sustained serious damage after hitting a pothole in the street, wrote to the local council and other authorities last week about what he described as a “complete waste of money” in materials and labour costs.
In a reply to Mr Borg, former Birkirkara mayor Michael Fenech Adami agreed the latest patching job had served no purpose and said “the only solution is to resurface the whole road as was previously planned”.
When contacted by this newspaper, Neil Spiteri, executive secretary of the Birkirkara local council, described the patching as an “extremely temporary measure” necessitated by a lack of funds for a complete resurfacing of the road.
The poor patching job was damaged in days, residents said. Photo: Chris Sant Fournier“Fixing the road as required would cost €2 million, which is twice our total annual allocation. The council can’t put out that sort of money on its own. Transport Malta has recognised it as a major issue, and discussions are at an advanced stage,” Mr Spiteri said, declining to provide a timeline for a start of works.
“In the meantime, we’ve spoken to the worker concerned and insisted on appropriate safety measures,” he added. “We receive a lot of complaints and negative feedback about this, so we are as eager to solve it as anyone.”
Parliamentary secretary for local councils Stefan Buontempo recently announced a €7.5 million government allocation for the upkeep of local roads, an increase of €1 million over last year. In a circular to local councils last week, Dr Buontempo said the increase reflected the government’s position that road maintenance, one of the most common sources of complaints, should be given special attention by local councils.