Mature trees lining Mdina Road in Attard were cut down on Monday evening as roadworks on the Central Link Project carried on into the autumn night. 

Excavators dug up tree trunks and heaped them into piles on the side of the road, as works to widen the thoroughfare connecting Rabat to Attard and Mrieħel entered their most contested phase.

Nationalist Party environment spokesman David Thake and former Alternattiva Demokratika chair Arnold Cassola were both quick to flag the late-night uprooting work. Both men noted that the work was taking place at the same time that the government was unveiling its Budget 2021 speech. 

“While everybody is watching budget speech on TV, they are butchering the trees in Mdina Road,” wrote Cassola. 

Thake shared a short video clip of excavators removing trees in the area. 

PN deputy leader David Agius also criticised the move on Tuesday morning.

Activists had tied themselves to trees in the summer of 2019 in protest at plans to destroy many of the trees along the road. Despite the demonstration, plans for the project were pushed forward by the government. 

Roughly 450 trees, including several protected species, must be uprooted to make way for the wider road, which the government says will drastically cut travel times and lead to significantly reduced pollution due to reduced traffic.  

To compensate for the loss, the government has pledged to plant 766 trees – roughly half the 1,649 trees which Environment and Resources Authority regulations actually demand.