Activist group Front Ħarsien ODZ will be formally objecting to plans to build a university campus on virgin land in Żonqor. 

In a statement, the group said that the proposed project was still in breach of planning policies including the local plan, which earmarked the proposed site for inclusion in a national park. 

 “We are calling on the government to include the land presently earmarked for a massive car park, student halls and sports facilities in the Inwadar park. It simply does not make sense to turn an area immediately next to the Inwadar Park into a construction and excavation site," the group said in a statement, adding that the project could end up disturbing a nearby special protection area.

Front Ħarsien ODZ was set up in 2015 to coordinate opposition to the Żonqor university plans, and was behind massive, nationwide protests against the proposal to turn the Żonqor site into a university campus. 

Following the protests, the government announced scaled-back plans for the AUM campus in Żonqor, with the university also getting another campus in Cospicua. Prime Minister Joseph Muscat had called the new proposal a "common sense compromise."

The group has now raised the possibility of further public protests, saying that it would continue to oppose the project "by all legal means necessary" and mobilise the public "as it did two years ago in the largest ever environmental protest in recent Maltese history."