Burmarrad farmers voice issues against road development

Many of the farmers present there described this project as “a detriment to their lives.” Most of them, who are full time farmers and own most of the land, said that with the construction of the road, underground water will be blocked.

"The construction of the land would work as a dam, leading our fields to be inundated, as the area receives a high amount of water transported by the valley," farmer Vincent Cortis said.

One of the farmers, Pawlu Bartolo said that their crops will be negatively effected as the soil will suffer from the road construction. “How can we compete with the foreign agricultural market if our land is polluted or even worse taken from us?” he said, adding that a similar situation had occurred back in 1967.

Archeologist Fr Eugene Teuma said that the area is of significant archeological importance. “Documents dating back to the Knights of St John reports how ships used to port in this area, as it was all sea.” Teuma explained how in the areas surrounding the fields were found many archaeological remains ranging from anchors, to shipwreck and seashells.

He also pointed out that if the developers had to come across any archaeological remains, the project would have to stop and a full excavation would have to be made at the expense of the same developers. “This is legally binding by the European Union and the Valletta Convention which was signed in 1994.”

Both the farmers and the archeologists claimed that the fields are highly fertile due to continuous yearly increase in the level of soil. “In fact,” the archeologist said, “burrowed deep in soil are rubble walls of over a metre in length.” A farmer adding that recently, the level of the soil rose by a foot in just one year.

Carmel Hili, St Paul’s Bay council member, remarked that this project would not only ruin the farmers’ land but would create health and safety concerns with regards to the nearby football ground.

“Three out of four walls of the football ground would be surrounded by the new roads. These will not only create safety issues but also health issues due to car pollution which the kids would be inhaling.”

“MEPA has given no sustained justification to why a two-lane road should be widened to four-lanes, where reforms in Transport Malta try to minimise the chances of cars overtaking,” Hili said. He proposed  to construct the new road as a fly-over as opposed to cutting right through the fields.

Hili also said that in the area grow two protected plants, the white poplar trees and the branched horse tail, which will be tremendously harmed.