Water Services Corporation ordered to pay hotel €55,000 for sewage overflow

The Water Services Corporation has been ordered to pay a Gozo hotel €54,912 in damages after a storm overloaded the island's sewerage system, causing it to overflow and flood the ballroom of the Grand Hotel in Ghajnsielem Gozo, resulting in considerable damages.

Belmont, the company that runs the hotel, had filed a lawsuit before the Court of Magistrates in Gozo, in its superior jurisdiction, claiming that it had been chasing the WSC to improve the sewerage infrastructure in the area, which had already been at capacity, due to the construction of 60 new apartments in the area.

Magistrate Joanne Vella Cuschieri heard how, despite the fact that the system had already overflowed in 2005 and employees of the corporation had been summoned to inspect the damages suffered by the hotel, no compensation had been paid and the hotel had repaired the damage at its own cost.

A court-appointed expert had evaluated the damages at €55,000, which the court upheld. It turned down a request by the hotel's operators for profits lost as a result. This decision was prompted by the plaintiff's failure to bring evidence of the amount, despite them easily being calculated.

A request that the court order improvement works on the sewerage infrastructure in the area be carried out was withdrawn as the WSC had done so in the interim.