Central Link leaves Attard showroom waterlogged

Faulty levelling and poorly-placed rainwater grills along a stretch of the Central Link road has been a cause for concern for an Attard businessman, as puddles of water several inches deep keep accumulating outside his showroom during rain showers and heavy downpours.

The stretch of tarmac in question lies further up from the Harley Davidson showroom, where hundreds of cars whizz through the newly-renovated street connecting Attard to Rabat.

During works on the Central Link project, the road was resurfaced in such a way that the road dips to the side and forces water to accumulate near the pavement, with nowhere for it to drain out.

There are two nearby rainwater grills. One is placed around the corner to collect rainwater coming from the nearby bend, while another is placed further down to catch some rainwater as it slides down the road.

Between the placement of the gutters and the levelling of the road, a lot of the water coming from the Central Link project ends up sitting by the pavement until it drains naturally into the asphalt.

A local businessman, who owns one of the nearby showrooms, said that this problem first cropped up last year after works finished in the area of the Central Link project. During one bout of heavy rainfall last October, he noticed the rainwater collecting right outside his showroom with nowhere to go, together with the rubbish carried in by the rainwater.

He realised that the rainwater has nowhere to go as both ends of the road in front of his showroom are at a higher level than the middle part near his entrance.

After taking some photos and videos of the incident, he tried contacting Infrastructure Malta, Transport Malta, and the Ministry for Transport, Infrastructure and Capital Projects to see if the issue can be rectified.

“I have been bringing this problem to the attention of the authorities, namely to Transport Malta and Infrastructure Malta, from August but nothing was done to solve this issue.”

Indeed, the contractor carrying out the works along the road had warned the businessman that this issue would arise. He pointed out that any rainwater falling along the area will have no way of finding itself into any of the nearby gutters.

Despite reaching out to authorities months ago, any promises of a solution where never followed through.

“I have never received any sort of notification from Infrastructure Malta even though the CEO, Frederick Azzopardi, was copied in each and every correspondence.”

The pedestrian experience walking along the road is far from desirable. As cars pass by and water accumulates, both the showroom facade and any passers-by on the pavement would be showered by the dirty water on the road. “It was futile to explain to the authorities that when it rains it is practically impossible to walk on the pavement. We cannot even open our doors to customers and employees because of this situation,” he said.

“This is negligence par excellence on behalf of Infrastructure Malta. It is also an utter disgrace that no action has been taken for six whole months while Infrastructure Malta knows very well that they messed up the falls of the new road in this part but still they let things stand as they are. One can imagine how I felt when with pomp they inaugurated the Central Link project last Sunday.”

Central Link takes centre stage

The Central Link Project was officially inaugurated last week, with Infrastructure Minister Ian Borg and Prime Minister Robert Abela unveiling a monolith of a plaque in the middle of a pavement near the arterial road.

Residents and environmental activists were unhappy with the project when government first announced the works. One protest in 2019 saw over 1,000 people head to Attard to make their voice heard against the uprooting of trees and loss of agricultural land that the project would have caused.

Indeed, in government’s first proposal authorities were set to remove all trees along one side of the road further up towards Rabat.

Floods of troubles

Beyond this stretch of road, Malta has long-standing issues with flooding after heavy bouts of rain.

Intense rainfall last November caused several major roads to flood, including the bottom lanes on the newly-built Marsa junction.

In Burmarrad, members of Malta’s armed forced had to carry out a helicopter rescue mission to pull out an elderly motorist and rescuers out of harms way after their car got stuck in flooded waters.

At the time, Infrastructure Minister Ian Borg said the flooding was the mere result of freak weather never seen before, and not the result of shortcomings by Infrastructure Malta.

There have also been other recorded instances of poorly placed rainwater gutters failing to collect any rainwater because of poor road levelling.

This was the case after a 2020 downpour, where passers-by along a Rabat road noticed rainwater sliding down the street while completely missing the griddle meant to collect and drain the water out.