Labour says traffic should enter Mosta via Eucharistic Congress Street

Labour candidates elected to Mosta council in the June 12 local elections will work to re-route the traffic in Mosta and set up a sub-committee for the elderly in the first 100 days after the local elections, Labour Party leader Alfred Sant said yesterday.

Irrespective of whether they have a majority - at present Mosta council has a PN majority - Labour councillors will move a motion insisting that traffic would enter Mosta from Eucharistic Congress Street.

The Rotunda church should be viewed by motorists when going into the town, he said.

Dr Sant was speaking during a visit to Wied il-Ghasel in the limits of Mosta in the framework of the party's campaign for the forthcoming local elections.

Wied il-Ghasel was one of the most beautiful places in Malta but was fast developing into a rubbish dump because of neglect - he said that in the past 20 years the valley was never cleaned and all that changed during these years was that rubbish had accumulated.

The Labour leader said that like other councils which had a Nationalist majority, Mosta council had made promises which it had not implemented.

The council had only implemented 35 per cent of its promises, Dr Sant said. He said among the unkept promises was a pledge to improve the public transport service, the embellishment of Rotunda Square and to address the parking situation in the town.

Dr Sant said that despite pressure by Mosta Labour councillors, Wied il-Ghasel was not cleaned and the rubbish was a threat to the flora and fauna in the area.

Rubbish was also close to the recreation grounds of the Lily of the Valley School close by, he said.

Dr Sant also visited another site at the valley where the government, through the Drainage Department, had undertaken trenching works in connection with a project to install a draining pump in the valley.

Works which, he said, were carried out without the necessary permit of the Malta Environment and Planning Authority had been stopped by the authority some time ago.

But the council, except for the Labour councillors, did not raise a finger to stop the ruin of the valley.

Dr Sant said the project did not make any sense from the ecological and technical aspects.

The project was stopped as a result of the pressure of the Labour councillors, but everything was left in a state of abandon without restoring this protected area to its original state. Old rubble walls had been breached to make way for the trenching, he said.

Dr Sant said Mosta was fast expanding and it was expected that in the next 10 years it would become the largest town in Malta, larger than Qormi and Birkirkara.