The old route from Tower Road in Sliema, near the chalet, to the Ferries via Bisazza Street is about 350 metres long. The new route via The Point tunnel is about 1,400 metres long – that is, 1,050 metres longer.

Assuming that an average of 5,000 cars drive daily through the new route and that an average car consumes one litre for every 15 kilometres, between them drivers are consuming an extra 350 litres of fuel every day. That is almost 128,000 litres every year. At the price of €1.30 (average) per litre this would amount to an annual additional expense of €166,000.

Furthermore, let us assume that the average car produces 135g of carbon per kilometre. This would produce about 2,600 tonnes per year. Now here we have a government that really has “clean air” at heart. After taking the decision to have our power plant working with heavy fuel oil, the government has decided to increase our carbon footprint.

And I thought that we were supposed to lower our carbon emissions by 2020.