ADPD Files Ombudsman Complaint Over €50M Project Green Makeover of Mosta’s Honey Valley

ADPD turns up heat on Project Green in Mosta valley: “Who really benefits from this €50 million facelift?”

The green benches of Parliament were barely warm on Monday afternoon when ADPD Chairperson Sandra Gauci strode out and handed the Office of the Ombudsman a thick dossier bound in recycled cardboard. Inside: photographs of uprooted carob trees, drone stills of churned-up rubble walls, and a timeline of permits granted to Project Green’s €50 million landscaping juggernaut now carving its way through Wied il-Għasel, the honey-coloured valley that cradles Mosta’s iconic dome like a limestone amphitheatre.

“Malta’s largest green-space project is turning a valley into a theme park,” Gauci told reporters, flanked by local residents clutching hand-written placards that read “Hands Off Our Wied”. The party has formally requested a full investigation into alleged breaches of good governance, transparency and environmental law, arguing that decisions have been taken “behind closed doors with zero meaningful consultation”.

Wied il-Għasel is no anonymous scrubland. Generations of Mostin have picnicked beneath its ancient olive groves, while children still dare each other to cross the 17th-century stone bridge said to be haunted by a lovesick bride. The valley’s honey-coloured gorge appears in 19th-century watercolours hanging inside the parish museum, and its carob pods once fed the donkeys that carried stone up to the Rotunda itself. When British warplanes droned overhead in 1942, villagers hid in the same caves that Neolithic farmers once used to grind grain. Scratch the limestone and you find millennia of shared memory.

That is precisely why Project Green’s sleek renderings—boardwalks, zip-lines, an elevated cycle track—have split the town in two. Supporters speak of economic oxygen: more visitors, longer stays, café terraces spilling onto new promenades. Critics counter that the valley’s fragile garigue and freshwater springs are already gasping under the weight of cranes and concrete pumps. “We were promised ‘minimal intervention’,” says 71-year-old Salvu Pace, who grew up hunting wrens in the valley. “Now they’re dynamiting rock to make space for a souvenir kiosk.”

ADPD’s complaint zeroes in on three flashpoints:

• A 2022 outline permit that quietly tripled the development footprint without fresh public consultation;
• A revised Environmental Impact Assessment that, according to the party’s expert, downplays irreversible damage to a protected Area of Ecological Importance;
• A direct order worth €8 million issued to a contractor who donated to both major parties in the last election cycle.

Gauci stops short of alleging corruption, but says the pattern “reeks of institutional capture”. The Ombudsman now has 60 days to decide whether to launch an inquiry.

Mosta mayor Chris Grech, elected on a Labour ticket, insists the project enjoys “overwhelming support”. He points to a survey commissioned by the local council showing 68% approval—though the poll sampled only 200 residents and excluded surrounding hamlets whose homes overlook the valley. “We are reconnecting people with nature,” Grech told TVM, gesturing toward a CGI fly-through of families kayaking beneath LED-lit cliffs. Yet even within the Labour heartland, unease is growing. A Facebook group called “Salvaw Wied il-Għasel” has swelled to 9,000 members in six weeks; last Sunday’s protest march drew pensioners, hunters and young climate activists in uneasy alliance.

The timing is politically awkward. European funds are bankrolling half the bill, and Brussels has flagged Malta for persistently poor environmental governance. Meanwhile, summer tourist numbers are creeping back to pre-COVID highs, intensifying pressure on every last pocket of countryside. “We’re not against development,” insists 19-year-old student Martina Borg, who skipped lectures to join the demonstration. “We’re against turning our valley into a selfie backdrop for cruise-ship day-trippers.”

As dusk settles, the Rotunda’s floodlights flick on, casting long shadows across the valley floor. Somewhere beneath the rubble, the scent of crushed wild thyme still lingers—at least for now. Whether Wied il-Għasel emerges as a model of sustainable regeneration or a cautionary tale of political hubris now rests, in part, on the Ombudsman’s desk. In a country where every square metre is contested, the valley has become more than a landscape; it is a referendum on what kind of Malta we want to leave behind.