Attard used to be known for the excellent quality of life it offered, due to its many gardens.

But this has been almost completely destroyed, complained MP Charles Buhagiar yesterday. Speaking during the Adjournment, Mr Buhagiar said the locality has been allowed to increase beyond its possibilities and it now has more than double the total population of the other two villages of the Three Villages – Lija and Balzan.

Until recently, its buildings were all two-storeys high but then Mepa started to allow people to pull down these dwellings and instead construct buildings with a semi-basement, three floors and a penthouse. This is being done not just in the terraced houses’ area but also in the villas area.

This means that Attard’s population, today at 12,000, will double again over the next four years, Mr Buhagiar claimed.

But the locality’s infrastructure cannot even cope with today’s population, let alone tomorrow’s. The school, recently enlarged, will have to be enlarged again.

But the main deficiency the locality suffers from is traffic density. Every day some 30,000 cars pass through its central streets, sometimes with tragic results as happened when a van hit two twins who were just coming out of the doctrine classes and were crossing the road on the zebra crossing to reach their father on the other side of the road. Fortunately, after a time on the critical list, the girls are now out of hospital and have gone back to school.

But whenever the street outside the school, where the accident took place, is closed, traffic is re-routed on to even narrower roads and a huge gridlock ensues especially near the US Ambassador’s residence.

The only solution, promised over so many years, is a bypass. This is also mentioned in the Structure Plan but the government has not come anywhere near to begin it. It is an urgent necessity not just for Attard but for all who pass through the locality.

One other problem that blemishes Attard is the dust from the quarry at Wied Incita.