Life is being disrupted in a once quiet, residential alley in Victoria as applications for restaurants and wine bars turn it into a “disaster” for the neighbours.

Triq Mons Guzeppi Farrugia, Alley No.1, a dead-end lane no more than 12 feet at its widest, has a wine bar in the making, while a bakery had turned into a take-away and has now been granted a restaurant permit right outside others’ homes.

Michael and Patricia Wetton, who have been residing in the alley since 1998, said they have been seeing their quality of life and health “seriously affected 24/7 by illegal and abusive behaviour”.

They have taken up the fight against planning applications PA 09881/19 for a wine bar, which they have managed to stall, and PA 06178/21, approved on Tuesday, to turn the bakery take-away into a restaurant, complete with outdoor tables and chairs at the end of the alley.

Living at nos. 22/23, the Wettons said the wine bar next door would open onto the front of their house, “impeding and impacting” the façade.

They said the permit to turn a vacant property into Class 4C – a food and drink establishment where no cooking is allowed – involved building and extending stairs to access the property’s cellar alongside their house, ending up directly in front of their window.

“Conveniently, the original plans missed our downstairs window. It took many requests by us and our lawyer for new plans that show this to be submitted,” they said about the saga.

This would not only mean they would have to remove most of the plants outside their house and lose access to that part of their façade, but also that patrons would be walking, talking and standing directly in front of their window in the tight street.

“To make matters worse, because of Michael’s health, we have had to sleep downstairs for many years,” Patricia Wetton said.

“Our bed is just on the other side of this window. So, you can imagine that any quality of life would be destroyed and there is nowhere else the bed can be positioned.”

The representations against the wine bar application showed “every single neighbour was totally against this being permitted in the alley”.

The application proposed to “reconfigure an existing staircase” to allow better access to the property, but the objections “vehemently denied that any stairs had ever come out through the back entrance, which had been closed up for some 40 years”.

It was submitted using photographs of a “very large, almost finished, basement”, rather than a small, unused dirt cellar, and “was eventually approved against all odds”.

A warrant of prohibitory injunction was granted in August last year and the civil case to overturn the application has also been started and continues in October.

Meanwhile, the Wettons said neighbours have had to withstand “major” excavations in the cellar – through a hole in the shop floor – which they claimed had no permit.

A complaint against the bakery’s original planning application, PA 02933/19, to sanction the addition of the take-away and place outside tables and chairs, had been submitted to the police, the PA, tourism, environmental health and heritage authorities on the grounds that it “seriously” affected residents in the vicinity.

But the latest green light for the bakery’s metamorphosis into a restaurant has left the Wettons “very angry but, together with other neighbours, determined to fight on”.

Submissions included a “wide range of abuses”, listing a “number of serious problems being inflicted upon surrounding residents by the operators”.

They complained about noise pollution, as well as the “flagrant” placing of tables, chairs, parasols, fans, barrels and a large metal trailer full of wood outside of the eight-square-metre area, specified in the PA permit, adjacent to the bakery entrance.

The bakery was being illegally operated as a bar and restaurant, serving alcohol and meals, including live entertainment. Bookings for tables and parties were also being advertised on Facebook, they said.

Attempts to resolve problems in the alley privately had been met with “aggression, hostility and abuse”, the couple said.

Until a complaint was submitted directly to the police commissioner, no adequate and sustained action had been taken to ensure that the bakery operated as per permit – as a take-away only and not as a restaurant and bar – “because everybody involved was seemingly either acquainted with or related to those responsible for enforcement,” they said.

The alley, which was embellished by the local council with ornate plant pots and benches and regularly used by wedding and fashion photographers, had until then been “completely commandeered” by the bakery.

Compounding the problem of the “excessive burning of vast quantities of toxic scrap wood” was the fact that the bakery chimney was below the legally required height and badly cracked, they said, adding residents were unable to open windows even in the hot weather.

“We have lived here very amicably for over 25 years with all of our local neighbours and very many good Gozitan and Maltese friends, during which time we have never had any problems or any reason to complain,” the Wettons said.

“We have always endeavoured to fully assimilate ourselves into the local community of our adopted and much-loved home, including creating and running the Gozo News website, which we run 24/7 on a non-profit/non-political basis.”

The house of Michael and Patricia Wetton: a staircase is planned right in front of it leading down to a wine bar’s cellar.