Moviment Graffiti activists on Thursday reiterated their call on Transport Minister Ian Borg and Infrastructure Malta CEO Frederick Azzopardi to meet them on the site in Dingli where work has started on a controversial new road and share detailed plans of works intended outside of the development zone.
Activists have been in a standoff with the roads agency since Monday, and they remain camped out on site in Daħla tas-Sienja which the new road will link to San Ġwann Bosco Street.
Earlier on Thursday, Infrastructure Malta said it was “accepting” seven requests by families on the manner how the new road would be built.
In a press conference on Thursday afternoon, Graffiti activist Andre Callus said that works should stop until all the pending issues with the site are resolved.
Infrastructure Malta, he said has abused its power to build this road to nowhere, while acting with silence arrogance and excuses when questioned why things needed to happen this way and why certain policies were not being respected.
Callus said that there are no official plans because the road has not gone through planning process at the Planning Authority.
The scheme road planned in 2006, he added, stopped right at the line within the development zone, which was why activists were demanding the official plans for the building of the road and a justification for why it needed to be diverted into ODZ.
“Despite the arrogance that we’ve been faced with here, we are still open to dialogue and I invite Ian Borg and Frederick Azzopardi to come here and meet us,” Callus said.
Residents of Sqaq il Muzew and and Triq San Gwann Bosco who spoke at the press conference said that they did not see a reason for the road to be built to improve access for emergency vehicles, particularly as heavy machinery and cranes had no difficulty in accessing these roads when apartment blocks were built some years ago.
They feared that the building of the road would lead to future development in the as yet undisturbed countryside.
Farmer and landowner Gerald Lapira said that he wanted answers not because he wanted to be compensated but because the land that had been farmed by generations of his family was on the line.
“We need to take care of the environment in Dingli not give in to rampant development, it does not make ends to ruin what we have here,” Lapira said.
“The environment should not be political football but at the heart of all major decisions irrespective of who holds power. I would like to call particularly on our President and Prime Minister who have both on several occasions called for better safeguarding of the the environment.”
“People are fed up of the situation and everyday the calls in favour of protecting our natural heritage grow louder.”
“Development through destruction is not progress, it’s devastation.”