Leap in the dark? DB go-ahead depends on tunnel beneath Natura 2000 site

The Planning Authority’s case officer’s go-ahead for DB’s massive City Centre project in Pembroke is based on the assumption that Infrastructure Malta will excavate a 1.4km tunnel that must pass beneath a protected Natura 2000 site.

The controversial opinion by the planning directorate’s case officer to give the maligned City Centre the green light, is based on the eventual approval of the tunnel, to be built by the government infrastructure agency.

The application, which has been “suspended” for more than a year, lacking any sort of environmental and social impact assessments, foresees both a tunnel for the Regional Road as well as a tunnel link to Pembroke as part of TEN-T plans on national road-building.

The tunnel application was met with objections by both environmental NGOs and Pembroke residents, particularly those living along Triq il-Mediterran which borders the proposed tunnel and whose lives will be disrupted by the required excavation works.

The works for the tunnel linking the DB project to St Andrew’s Street, will be financed entirely by the government.

Curiously, Transport Malta’s comments on the current application for the DB project, which were identical to the feedback sent in August 2018, were sent five days after the expiry of the consultation period, and therefore deemed ineligible by the PA.

The case officer’s report still refers to the TM comments previously sent back in 2018 (and reiterated in the 2021 submission) in which the regulator – falling under the same ministry as Infrastructure Malta – points out that the St Andrew’s junction will become a major traffic bottleneck in 2025 without major road improvements.

The scale of the Natura 2000 site stretches the entire Pembroke garigue

In this respect, TM’s clearance was conditional on a letter of commitment from the government for the required infrastructure measures within an appropriate time-frame, to ensure that site-generated traffic from the DB project, does not create conditions in which road capacity is exceeded.

The case officer also said in his reports that in the meantime, a new application which includes “the indicative tunnel alignment” and junction shown in the DB project’s drawings, has been presented.

According to the Transport Impact Assessment presented by the City Centre developers, the project as proposed now will generate 934 car trips during afternoons and 541 car trips during morning hours, which is based on a 15% reduction after the project was downscaled.

The DB Group’s consultants argued that the tunnel will not be exclusively serving the project but also other developments in the area.

The Environment and Resources Authority also issued its go-ahead for the project, based on the assumption that the new tunnel will be dug prior to an assessment of the environmental impacts of the tunnel application. The report by ERA simply recommended that excavation works for the proposed tunnel are subject to a number of mitigation measures including continuous stone wetting during the drilling process to reduce the quantities of particulate matter that will be generated.