The Department of Local Government has been ordered by the court to pay the local council €60,000 for clearing up horse manure on the Marsa racetrack.

In 1998, the council received numerous complaints from residents living close to the track about uncontrolled dumping of horse manure from the stables in the area.

The government used to collect the waste but then stopped, forcing the council to do the job itself even if it did not have sufficient funds.

The council complained in court that it had repeatedly asked the government for more funds but to no avail.

Then, in 2005, lack of money forced the council to stop collecting the manure and the police instituted court proceedings against it at the request of the director of public health.

Eventually, in 2006, the council itself took the matter to court, demanding that the authorities make good the money it had paid to collect the manure.

The court noted that, before 1999, the cleaning of the area used to carried out by the central government.

Each local council was responsible for providing waste collection services in its locality but the law also provided that certain roads in various localities fell under the responsibility of the government.

The Local Government Department argued that the area in question fell under the responsibility of the central government and not of the local council.

Mr Justice Joseph Zammit McKeon, sitting in the First Hall of the Civil Court, ruled that the Local Government Department was the appropriate defendant and not the Public Health Department, the Prime Minister and the Minister for Rural Affairs and the Environment, which had originally been sued by the council.