Updated at 5.16 pm with PN statement. 

Infrastructure Malta began excavating farmland in Luqa early on Saturday morning, prompting farmers to express frustration at a planning process that allows works to proceed while appeals are pending. 

The state agency is digging up a stretch of arable land in Triq il-Kunsill tal-Ewropa, Luqa as part of a road reconstruction project. It was granted a permit to do so in June.  

Workers showed up at around 4 am on Saturday morning with two excavators and started carting away soil from fields, which farmers had been working on just a day prior.

Landowner Andrew Costa, together with Moviment Graffitti, filed an appeal against the permit decision in July and sought to suspend the original permit while the appeal is being heard.   

But that appeal was turned down by the planning tribunal, which ruled that Costa would not suffer “disproportionate damage" if works were allowed to proceed and would potentially also have the right to seek compensation in a civil court. 

The next hearing in the appeal process is in February - by which time the excavation works are expected to have been completed. 

“This land had been in my family since 1913, they just showed up at 4 am and started digging it up,” Costa told Times of Malta. 

“What chance do we have at a fair hearing, if they’ve started to work and our next sitting is in February?”

Costa explained that the works would be taking up the only part of his land that is sufficiently arable and that in his view, road widening in the area was completely unnecessary. 

“This project is not needed because there are no traffic issues here,” he said. 

“The road was already widened ten years ago to manage traffic and it was doing that perfectly well, there is hardly ever any congestion in this stretch of the road.” 

The same stretch of land being dug up just a day prior to the start of works

Costa claims that only five to eight cars pass through that stretch of road every minute. 

“Put it this way," he said.  "My house is across the road from the field and I can cross at leisure whenever I want." 

Ingram Bondin, a relative of Costa’s, said that such incidents highlighted how “broken” the entire planning system is. 

“Works begin while there is a pending appeal, and if you file for a suspension of works, at most they give you three months,” he said. 

“How on earth is the tribunal supposed to give you a fair hearing if while you’re still trying to make your case, the works would have already been done?”

“The system is broken. It is biased in favour of developers if you have to wait months in order to advocate for your appeal and workers are just given the go-ahead to start.”

Arrogance has to end, PN says

In a statement, the Nationalist Party said this sort of “arrogant behaviour” by the infrastructure agency had to stop.  

This was all happening with the blessing of the ministers responsible, the PN said, referring to Infrastructure Minister Ian Borg, and environment minister Aaron Farrugia. 

A new perspective Nationalist government, the PN said, would respect the laws and people’s right to enjoy their property.  

The statement was signed by PN MPs Toni Bezzina, Edwin Vassallo, and Robert Cutajar.