Works along the Birkirkara bypass, which two days ago caused massive traffic jams, would only be carried out at night to avoid further disruptions, the Water Service Corporation said.

The WSC was reacting to a news item that appeared in the Times of Malta yesterday and which it said contained “inaccurate statements”.

It complained that, contrary to what had been reported, it had issued a statement to the press on Friday warning motorists in advance to avoid the area.

The WSC indicated that its statement had not been published by the Times of Malta.

While this newspaper acknowledges that the latter was an oversight on its part, the original statement said that traffic would be reduced to a single lane on Tuesday.

The WSC specified yesterday that works would only be carried out between 8pm and 5am, when traffic ap-proaching the university via Iklin would be reduced to a single lane.

The contractor doing the job was slapped with an enforcement notice for not adhering to the conditions

In the remaining hours, the trenches would be covered with metal sheets to allow the reopening of the lane.

It said that the trenching works were part of an EU-funded project to upgrade the water supply from Ta’ Qali to Sliema.

Tuesday’s traffic congestion was the result of a bottleneck caused by the partial closure of a carriageway that was reduced to a single lane.

The WSC contractor carrying out the job was slapped with an enforcement notice for not adhering to the conditions imposed by the traffic watchdog.

A WSC spokesman in-sisted that the works were covered by a Transport Malta permit.

Though excluding that these were related to a nearby car wash, no details about the nature of the excavation works were offered, nor were there any about arrangements made to mitigate traffic congestion.

Some motorists were stuck in traffic for up to an hour and vented their frustration on the social media.