Bidnija Roadworks Nightmare: Malta’s Quietest Hamlet Trapped in Endless Dust and Diesel

Bidnija ‘nightmare’ roadworks drag on past June deadline as residents fume
By Hot Malta staff

The scent of wild fennel that once drifted over Bidnija’s silent valley has been replaced by diesel fumes and the grind of heavy plant. Eight months after contractors first tore up the narrow, 1.2-kilometre spine that links the hamlet to Mosta, the promised “six-week job” is still nowhere near finished. June’s completion deadline has come and gone; fresh tarmac has yet to be laid; and the daily choreography of cars, hunters’ pick-ups, horse-boxes and quad bikes now unfolds in a knee-deep trench of dust and shattered limestone.

“It feels like living inside a construction site that never clocks off,” says 72-year-old Carmenu Zahra, leaning on the gate of the stone villa his family has owned since 1928. “We used to sit on the front step and listen to the swallows. Now we listen to hydraulic hammers.”

Bidnija – population 308, one bar, one chapel, no shortage of opinions – sits on the northern ridge of Malta’s last green lung. The area is prized by hikers, horse breeders and the seasonal passista who still trap quail in the surrounding fields. But its single-access road, officially Triq il-Bidnija, was never built for the 2,400 vehicles that GPS apps now funnel through it every day. When Infrastructure Malta announced a €1.7 million upgrade last October – wider carriageway, new sewers, fibre ducts and retaining walls – most locals welcomed the promise of safer bends and proper drainage. Few expected the works to overrun into high summer.

Instead, residents say, the project has become a masterclass in how not to renovate a rural artery. Power cuts, burst water pipes and a three-week pause after an archaeological monitoring team uncovered Roman-period silos have all eaten into the schedule. Meanwhile, the usual two-way traffic has been squeezed into a single alternating lane controlled by bored flagmen who melt in the July heat.

“It’s chaos from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m.,” says Marisa Camilleri, who runs the village’s only convenience store. Bread deliveries are turned away, tourists on quad bikes get stuck in reverse, and her usual 6 a.m. fishermen’s coffee crowd has evaporated. “June was supposed to be my best month – village festa, bike rallies, the feast of St. John. Takings are down 40 per cent.”

The festa she mentions is no small matter. On the eve of the summer solstice, Bidnija’s chapel of the Visitation is bedecked with damask and bay-leaf garlands, and locals process through the lanes behind a brass band playing the village anthem. This year the band could barely squeeze past the roadworks; the statue of the Madonna wobbled on its litter as bearers negotiated steel plates. “It broke the spell,” laments 19-year-old clarinettist Luke Pace. “You can’t feel the devozzjoni when you’re inhaling exhaust.”

Infrastructure Malta insists the end is “weeks, not months” away. Project manager Robert Gatt told Hot Malta that final surfacing will begin once statutory curing of concrete culverts is verified, “probably mid-August”. He blamed “unforeseeable archaeological obligations” and supply-chain delays for the slippage, adding that night shifts have now been authorised to claw back time. Residents remain sceptical; a WhatsApp group titled “Bidnija Road Hell” circulates daily photos of idle machinery and flooded trenches.

Beyond inconvenience, the stalemate feeds into a deeper anxiety: the fear that Malta’s countryside is being loved to death. Bidnija’s backroads have become the go-to testing ground for off-road enthusiasts and Insta-famous sunset chasers. The unfinished works funnel even more traffic onto adjacent farm tracks, churning up the very landscape that makes the area special. “We’re not against progress,” says horse-trainer Charlie Azzopardi, whose paddocks overlook the trench. “But if you carve up the countryside in the name of mobility, you end up destroying what people came here to enjoy.”

As the sun drops behind Marfa Ridge, the machines finally fall silent. A lone nightingale starts to sing, then thinks better of it when a compressor fires up again. In the dim light, the orange traffic barrels glow like warnings on an aircraft runway. Somewhere further up the lane, Carmenu Zahra locks his door and mutters a Maltese proverb older than the road itself: “Il-ħerqa tispicca, imma l-ħsara tibqa’.” Greed finishes, but the damage remains. For Bidnija, the question is how much more damage the village must swallow before the bulldozers finally roll away.