Eleven studies related to a Malta-Gozo tunnel project have been published so far, the Infrastructure Ministry said on Saturday in reaction to court action by NGOs demanding more transparency about the project. 

On Friday a group of NGOs filed a judicial protest against Infrastructure Minister Ian Borg, Infrastructure Malta, Transport Malta and the Planning Authority. They argue that the Gozo tunnel project is moving ahead despite no real study about its potential alternatives and say that a project of its scale requires a Strategic Environment Assessment before it can go ahead.

Their concerns are shared by the Church’s environment commission, which earlier this week noted that the government had not published any studies which assessed alternatives to building a tunnel and included a cost-benefit analysis of them.

Without that sort of assessment, the commission said, “the tunnel is not justified”.

Reacting on Saturday, the ministry defended its decision to move forward with plans for the tunnel, saying it was seeking “sustainable solutions and the best possible value for this capital investment” and insisting that the process was “rigorous”.  

There was a “national consensus” about the need for the tunnel project, the ministry said.

It said that a pre-qualification questionnaire which potential bidders must fill in is also available online and had been published in the Official Journal of the European Union.   

The government has repeatedly shrugged off criticism of its tunnel plans, saying that the project formed part of its 2017 electoral manifesto and that studies related to the project would be published as they were completed.   

The tunnel studies the government says have been published so far:

1. Preliminary analysis – assessment of road tunnel options between Malta and Gozo

2. Economic cost benefit analysis of strategic options

3. Social impact assessment

4. Geological and geotechnical investigation

5. Project description statement

6. Investigative coring

7. ToR for appropriate assessment

8. ToR for environmental impact assessment

9. A study about the tunnel between Malta and Gozo

10. Forecasts for traffic flows through the Malta-Gozo tunnel

11. Conceptual design

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