The Sliema local council has expressed its surprise that a main road was resurfaced without its knowledge and just months before having to be dug up again to lay new services.

Mayor Anthony Chircop told Times of Malta the road project overlooked a long-planned regeneration project for the area and was simply resurfaced to appease some businesses in the area, but Infrastructure Malta insisted they were “emergency repairs”.

Residents woke up to ‘no parking’ signs on Tuesday, as workers from Infrastructure Malta spent the next two days resurfacing the road close to Stella Maris parish church without the approval of the council.

Chircop said the council had been liaising with Infrastructure Malta, since the authority’s inception, to assume absolute responsibility for all road resurfacing works. The council plan, years in the making, would have seen Upper High Street rebuilt and realigned while some of the dangerous narrow pavements would have been made more accessible.

“The council had acquired funding for the project, but logistics had to change at several stages, the Water Services Corporation as well as Enemalta both needed to do works in the area, so our timing had to be delayed,” Chircop said.

Additionally, Infrastructure Malta were behind on a project on Manwel Dimech Street and the council did not push for works to start on High Street as it would see the closure of two arterial roads in the locality at the same time, the mayor said.

He said residents were rightfully irked at the situation, as it created the impression the council had haphazardly started on its long-planned project with little warning.

“As a local council, we felt the need to clarify the works were not approved from our end,” Chircop said.

“In my opinion, works focused on a section of road that wasn’t in such a bad state simply to appease businesses in that area. There are other parts of the road which are in a far more terrible state and they were not addressed.”

According to Chricop, the resurfacing works will be short- lived, as works to lay a new water main and electricity cables in High Street are hopefully due to begin by the end of summer.

“Had this been planned better we could have created less inconvenience to residents and done all the work that was needed in one go, as was planned,” Chircop said.

“This stretch having to be uprooted again in a few months makes little sense.”

But a spokesperson for Infrastructure Malta said the agency had started works in response to queries from residents and businesses in the area for the agency to intervene.

Infrastructure Malta said it is currently rebuilding another two nearby streets in the same locality – Manwel Dimech Street and Sant’ Elena Street. Works in each of these two long streets are split in two phases. In both streets, the first phase is ready and the second phase is starting shortly.

These reconstruction works involve a total rebuild of the road’s foundations, footpaths and carriageways, as well as the reinforcement of their underground distribution networks.

While the agency is committed to implement its seven-year, €700 million investment to upgrade the quality of Malta’s residential roads, it also needs to coordinate works in each locality to ensure that the reconstruction of different streets at the same time do not become avoidable inconveniences to road users and residents, the spokesperson said.

“The local council’s project to rebuild High Street could not have started before the ongoing works in other nearby streets are ready. Some of these streets would need to be used as diversion routes while High Street is closed for long periods of time, to implement the indicated project.”

IM said some of the underground network laying works planned for this street will not start until after summer.

“Had Infrastructure Malta not carried out this week’s emergency repairs, this busy street would have remained in a dangerous state for many more months, putting road users’ safety at risk during this area’s busiest months of the year.”

The repairs carried out by Infrastructure Malta would not impede on the local council’s plans to rebuild the road in the future, the spokesperson said.