Residents call for safe passage at Mriehel bypass

The Qormi local council yesterday held a news conference in Triq is-Sebh, better known as the Mriehel bypass, to press for a bridge or an underpass that residents will be able use to go to the town centre.

Two girls - 13-year-old Graziella Fenech and 17-year-old Emma Marie Housley - died there following a traffic accident a few days ago.

Mayor Jesmond Aquilina said residents at Tal-Blat 2 residential zone had been facing problems ever since the development of the bypass but they were never addressed.

The council had set up a residents' commission to discuss and address the problems and needs of the residents in question.

John Fenech, Graziella's father, said residents had been in the area well before the bypass was constructed. There had been a road connecting the two sides but the bypass now cuts through it.

He said that when the road was being developed he went to the Housing Authority and pointed out that the link to the other side of town was being destroyed and therefore alternatives should be found but nothing happened.

Mr Aquilina said that more than six months ago the council had requested the installation of a speed camera in the area to curb excessive driving. But the permit for the installation of a camera was only issued last week, a few days after the fatal accident. The cameras were actually installed on Tuesday. The mayor said the Central Malta Local Plan made it clear that "any improvement of this junction should also seek to provide safe pedestrian crossing facilities for those living north of the bypass who use facilities in the main area of Qormi, preferably by means of the provision of an underpass".

Labour MP Marie Louise Coleiro, who was present for the press conference, said the residents there did not even have a grocer on their side and had to cross over to the centre regularly. What they needed, she said, was a footbridge because an underpass attracted abuse and would not be used.