Mellieħa residents and commuters complain they are being kept in the dark about plans announced by Transport Minister Ian Borg to re-widen the town's bypass.
As the contractor – the GAP group – building over 120 apartments adjacent to the Mellieħa bypass, continues working on a new service road that encroaches on part of the existing perimeter road, the Transport Ministry failed to give details on how Dr Borg’s announcement – that it would remain a four-lane road – would work in practice.
When the Times of Malta visited the site last week, work on the service road, extending onto a substantial part of the bypass, appeared to continue.
Residents in the area told this newspaper they noticed no changes in the work, as they had expected after the minister’s public statement.
This is pure greed by the project developers
“The road serving this massive development continues to be built and is almost ready. It is taking a large part of the public bypass and we cannot understand how the minister can say that the bypass will remain a four-lane road,” a concerned resident said.
“This is pure greed by the project developers who seem to have been given the green light by the authorities to do whatever they please. This is ‘Wild West’ style with developers having the government’s blessing to take over even essential infrastructure: public roads,” he added.
When asked about the matter, a Transport Ministry spokeswoman replied, rather evasively: “A few weeks ago, the minister asked Transport Malta to reconsider the original plans for the redesign of the Mellieħa bypass, with a view to maintaining four lanes. Upon reviewing the original plans, the Transport Malta’s architects confirmed that the Mellieħa bypass can be upgraded to introduce several safety features, without narrowing it down to three lanes.”
She said the plans were still being finalised.
Road architects consulted by this newspaper said that the government had two options.
“The road can either be extended laterally, a big project that will take up ODZ land and, probably, involve expensive expropriations, or else narrow the carriageways to make the road four lanes,” they said.
Though they deem the first option to be very difficult and expensive to attain technically, in their opinion the second choice would make the road unsafe.
They admitted they could not understand why the government should get involved to such an extent when this was a private development.
“Perhaps there is something we are not seeing,” one of them said.
Real estate agents noted that a private property having its service road on a public bypass would make the apartments there better marketable and more attractive to buyers.
Originally, Dr Borg had justified taking part of the bypass, saying it would address “an anomaly”, however, following a public uproar, he declared that after listening to the public, a plan was drafted to ensure that the bypass remained a four-lane one.
ivan.camilleri@timesofmalta.com