The new proposed Għadira route has the added environmental advantage over the upgrading of the existing road of reconnecting the beach to the valley ensuring that Għadira does not follow down the road of St George’s Bay, Balluta, Marsalforn and Xlendi where the sandy beach was lost because the beach was cut off from the valley by development, the Infrastructure Ministry said this evening.

It said that five proposals for this road had been made. Four were developed by then Minister Jesmond Mugliett and had all been objected to. Consequently the current ministry was only bringing forward a fifth proposal.

Three of the four proposals presented by former minister Mugliett involved the upgrading of the present road, including one proposal to put part of it on stilts: a viaduct that would allow the beach to be replenished naturally from the valley.

These three were all strongly opposed by environmentalists. The Infrastructure Ministry was now proposing the new route from the back of the Danish Village because the present route had already been shot down, and because it had been guided by the Environment Protection Department at the Malta Environment and Planning Authority that this is the least environmentally problematic option available.

The proposed route, it said, would not pass through the middle of Foresta 2000. The intrusion would be minimal, if at all, since it would mostly make use of an existing road which skirted the perimite of the planned afforestation.