Several meetings and promises later, people living at the Mrieħel industrial area are still sharing their roads with dumped car parts, spray-paint fumes and other pollutants.
The area aspires to become an upmarket business district. However, it also hosts some residents who live in poorly-maintained roads that are often littered with discarded waste and haphazard parking.
Residents have questioned why the authorities were still issuing permits for residential blocks, considering the area is increasingly becoming industrial.
In February, they insisted they were living in “Third World conditions”. A resident of Triq il-Għadam told the Times of Malta on Sunday that they were still waiting for some “positive update” from the relevant authorities.
“I would like you all to come over so you can smell the strong fumes after someone, despite having their own car-spraying oven, sprayed a bonnet and mudguard at the entrance to their garage.
Some panel beaters carried works outdoors
“The fumes ended up in our own house as we had left our balcony doors open,” he wrote in a letter to the authorities.
The man questioned whether the Birkirkara local council, the Central Business District Foundation, the Malta Chamber of SMEs (GRTU) and the government had taken any action because the residents were sharing the road with haphazardly-parked cars and they were still being woken up at 6.30am by noise from underlying garages.
Some panel beaters work outdoors, rather than inside their premises, leaving behind all kinds of screws, glass and trash, including puddles of engine oil, he added.
“Despite several meetings and promises, we are still living in such conditions after the planning authorities issued residential and industrial permits for the same road,” he wrote, urging the authorities to stop promising the moon.
The only replies the residents received so far were those from the district foundation and the local council.
The foundation promised that police officers would be visiting the area and the local council noted it was waiting for an update about enforcement regulations from the Environment and Resources Authority.
Times of Malta is informed that traffic enforcement in Mrieħel will start this month after the foundation, tasked by the government and Mrieħel businesses to upgrade and bring some order to the area, devised a traffic management plan along with Transport Malta. This includes limiting parking on some roads to one side and turning others into one-way systems. Enforcement officers are expected to be on site come October 21.