Three main roads in Naxxar are to be embellished with 400 trees and 1,000 shrubs, Infrastructure Malta said on Wednesday. 

Margaret A. Murray Road, Andrea Debono Road and Jean Houel Road are all interconnected, leading to the end of Tal-Balal Road and the T’Alla u Ommu roundabout. 

In a statement issued on Wednesday, IM said that work to remove parts of concrete slabs separating the roads has started and that 1.6km of new landscaping strips will be developed.

Those strips will be filled with olive, holm oak, cypress and Aleppo pine trees, along with several species of indigenous shrubs, such as lentisk and shrubby germander. 

Margaret M. Murray Road. Photo: Infrastructure Malta

The intention, it said, is to create a “green belt” separating houses on residential side lanes from the thoroughfares in front of them, to reduce traffic noise and improve air quality for hundreds of families.

No parking spaces, footpaths, pedestrian crossings or vehicle lanes will be affected by the strips, IM said. 

It said that it had planted 22,162 trees in Malta and Gozo in 2021, an average of 60 trees a day.