The government is sending mixed messages to farmers when it praises them on one day but tries to take away arable land on another officials from Alternattiva Demokratika and Partit Demokratiku have said. 

In a press conference held just metres away from where activists and farmers thwarted heavy machinery from demolishing arable land to make room for a road just a day previously, officials from AD and PD said that Infrastructure Malta's insistence on attempting to carry out works on Friday showed that contradiction was rife in the operations of government bodies. 

Addressing the media, AD Chair Carmel Cacopardo said the government could not offer its help with one hand and wreak havoc with the other, as it insisted on doing through Infrastructure Malta. 

"When Infrastructure Malta attempts to justify its attitude in the context of the legal notice that allows road works 'within scheme' to be carried out without planning permission, it forgets that theses roads are linked to permissible planning," Cacopardo said. 

"The road that Infrastructure Malta wants to build is not necessary." 

Activists blocking heavy machinery in Triq is-Sienja on Friday. Photo: Mark Zammit Cordina

Cacopardo also pointed out that in development zones, planned development projects are usually concluded before roads are constructed to avoid having to redo works due to damage and that insistence on constructing the road was leaving little choice for farmers.

"If the farmers over whose property this road is projected to run through want to keep working their fields, why is Infrastructure Malta imposing development on them? Why are we obsessed with stuffing every empty corner with construction?"

On Friday Dingli Farmers and Moviment Graffiti activists blocked construction workers from demolishing farmland and beginning work on the planned road that would connect Triq is-Sienja with Triq Don Bosco. 

Many of the farmers on whose land the road is planned through told Times of Malta they had not been made aware of the project before they found heavy machinery rolling up the narrow road on Friday morning. 

The three-hour stand off came to a head when Infrastructure Malta CEO Frederick Azzopardi arrived on scene in an attempt to placate the farmers but was met with a barrage of criticism from angry residents. 

Azzopardi attempted to justify the project by claiming that if there were a fire in the narrow alley, a fire engine would not be able to access the area. 

One farmer who angrily confronted Azzopardi said, "What will I do when your machines run over my wells, register for unemployment?"