The abandoned Marsa-Ħamrun bypass green wall is set to turn over a new leaf, with Infrastructure Malta announcing that a new green wall will be constructed over the next three weeks.

The road's inner lane will be closed nightly between 8pm and 5am “to facilitate the installation of a new green wall structure, the placement of new planters, and the implementation of an upgraded irrigation system,” the agency said in a Facebook post.

Works are set start this evening and be completed on Tuesday 8 April.

The original green wall along the 350m stretch of road was inaugurated to a blaze of publicity in late 2020, at a cost of €650,000.

The wall would “serve as potential ecological stepping stones for insects and pollinators between rural and urban environments; reduce noise pollution, contribute to cooler micro-climates, reduce air pollution, and improve the experience of those who live and work in urban areas,” then-environment minister Aaron Farrugia had said at the time.

The original wall being installed in 2020. File photo: Matthew Mirabelli

But the wall’s 27,600 plants quickly began to wither and, by last year, much of its lush greenery appeared to be pushing up the daisies.

The government pinned the blame for the wall’s degradation on The Doric Studio, the contractor responsible for its upkeep. It argued that the contractor, which had been paid €480,000 over five years to maintain the wall, had failed to meet its obligations.

With a legal dispute taking root, the remaining plants were promptly removed and the wall has laid bare over the past several months.

By late last year there was precious little green in the wall. File photo: Matthew Mirabelli

Other green walls around the country have hardly fared better.

A €600,000 project for three green walls in Mosta, Corradino and Marsa was quietly scrapped last year, with the government’s industrial land management company INDIS saying the walls require too much water to maintain, outweighing the benefits of keeping them.

The news that the government will plough ahead with a new green wall was met with ridicule on social media, with several Facebook users describing it as a waste of money.