Two abandoned rooms, built illegally in the protected countryside of Ta’ Gerżuma in Rabat, were pulled down by planning authority enforcement officers.

The illegal two-room structure was built and abandoned in the mid-1990s. The enforcement officers also removed scrap metal that had been dumped in the path leading to the structure, the authority said.

The site, part of Wied Gerżuma, was scheduled in 1998 for its high archaeological importance because the area is a buffer zone for the Il-Qlejgħa bronze age village, Il-Kunċizzjoni megalithic temple and the Punico Roman Remains at Ras ir-Raħeb, Rabat.

A request to schedule the range of garigue habitats in the area was also made.

The authority sealed off three large sites where construction waste was illegally dumped in a scheduled area in L-Aħrax tal-Mellieħa and at two sites in Mtarfa.

Meanwhile, enforcement officers were yesterday stopped from demolishing illegal rooms in a field in Lija after the developer obtained a warrant of prohibitory injunction.