A St Julian’s resident has said he cannot sleep because of the noise of construction works taking place in the early hours close to his home.
Reginald Calleja explained that for the past two months he has been putting up with what he describes as the sounds of loud hammering coming from the construction site on Triq Sant Andrija, St Julian’s.
He said the noise is so loud that he and his wife have resorted to putting the television on to drown out the noise.
“I’m going crazy. I can’t even sleep during the night. We put the TV on with the volume nearly full on to muffle the noise during the night. I’m losing my temper and I can’t take it anymore,” the resident said.
Mr Calleja shared audio recordings of the construction noise with Times of Malta. In one audio entry made at 2.15am on November 18 the sound of hammering can clearly be heard.
According to Mr Calleja the noise is coming from the site of the 31-storey Mercury Towers project, being built by developer J Portelli Projects.
When asked if he had complained, Mr Calleja said he raised his concerns with St Julian’s mayor Albert Buttigieg in October.
He said that Mr Buttigieg had told him that the developers had been given permission to work during the night.
“He said there was nothing they could do. They had permission from the authorities,” Mr Calleja recalled.
I’m going crazy. I’m losing my temper and I can’t take it anymore
Mr Buttigieg said the St Julian’s local council had received Mr Calleja’s complaints about the project and they had duly raised the issue with the “appropriate channels,” the Building Regulations Office and Transport Malta, through their executive secretary.
The mayor said their response was “that the works must be done during the night because there are deadlines that must be met, so they need to work during the night hours.”
To his knowledge, construction works can take place between 7am and 5pm on weekdays, occasionally the same hours on Saturday and no work on Sundays. He did say that permission can be given for works to take place on Sunday.
Transport Malta said that it would only be involved in the regulation of road clearances for construction vehicles but would not be involved in regulating noise levels.
The Building Regulations Office would not answer questions from the media regarding the noise complaint. Times of Malta was instead instructed to raise the questions with the Parliamentary Secretary for Planning and the Property Market.
Questions were sent to the Parliamentary Secretary’s office, but no answers were received by the time of publication.
A representative of J Portelli Projects said they would be gathering the information on the situation and sending their replies in reasonable time.