The government is returning 115 plots of land which had been expropriated from their owners for road-building purposes but were never used.

The measure was announced today by Transport Minister Austin Gatt and Jason Azzopardi, the minister responsible for lands.

Dr Gatt said this was a unique exercise in that unused expropriated sites were normally only returned after proceedings were launched by the owners.

The owners of the land were notified in the past few days, and Dr Azzopardi said some were very surprised, since they did not know that their parents or grandparents had actually owned the land.

"Some told us there was some mistake," Dr Azzopardi said.

The oldest expropriation which remained unused was made in 1954 in Zabbar.

In all, the plots cover over 40 tumoli of land. Some are in development zones. No payment had been made to the owners and no claims had been made.

Among the sites are four plots in Zurrieq expropriated in 1981, 24 in Mosta expropriated in 1977, 20 in Mtarfa (1987) eight in Marsascala in 1981/82 and four in Marsaxlokk in 1988.

Dr Azzopardi said the government was also continuing its exercise of compensating landowners whose land was expropriated for use in home ownership schemes, and last month alone, €3m were paid in compensation to owners of expropriated land in Zurrieq, Nadur and Gudja. In this way, the owners of the houses built on such land could finally become full owners - some 25 years after the expropriations took place.