The owner of the Nadur restaurant who successfully applied to extend the pavement outside her establishment is denying claims, made by nearby residents, that the extension is causing traffic havoc in the town centre.

Instead, Antoinette Said is adamant that the objection to the pavement extension stems from a longstanding dispute with the owner of a neighbouring establishment.

The case concerns Anthony's Bar and Restaurant in Dun Martin Square, which is located behind the Nadur parish church.

The restaurant has been in operation for 25 years, and has enjoyed a permit to set up a number of tables and chairs outside since its inception. Pictures on the restaurant's own website show that the tables and chairs were being set up in the street itself, beneath the pavement. Ms Said, in fact, explains that the decision to extend the pavement was primarily made for safety reasons.

She applied for the permit "to extend pavement under the area covered with the concession for placing of tables" on 1 April, and the MEPA case officer assigned recommended that a permit should be granted. MEPA's Environment and Planning Commission unanimously decided to grant the permit last September, on condition that no tables and chairs are placed in front of the shop in the corner of the square.

An objection was filed later that month, however, and should be heard by the Planning Appeals Board next Thursday. In the meantime, the pavement was extended nevertheless: local planning laws allow works to continue even though an appeal against them is pending.

A resident who spoke to The Malta Independent claimed that the pavement extension has created a bottleneck, and that traffic congestion was now frequent at the picturesque square, to the chagrin of the area's residents. He also said that as a result, a number of tiles in the newly-extended pavement have already been shattered due to cars driving over it.

But Ms Said is denying that this has been the case, stating that the objection stems from the owner of a nearby outlet who wanted to keep his van parked at that particular corner of the square.

Ms Said even claimed that this van was responsible for the shattered tiles, supplying security camera footage of a white van parked over the extended pavement to back her claim.

"I have been here for 25 years... he has been here for five and he has done nothing but harm to me," Ms Said maintained.

The person who contacted The Malta Independent, however, is not the shop owner mentioned by Ms Said, but a man whose family, this newspaper can confirm, owns a house in the square in question.

The home's elderly owner had joined forces with the shop owner mentioned by Ms Said and his son in a judicial protest filed last year, in which they claimed that the restaurant's street furniture and a plastic tent were causing substantial obstruction, and that the noise from the restaurant was creating a nuisance.

But Ms Said insists that such objections do not reflect the general sentiment of the area's residents.

"Residents are not complaining about the pavement... they wouldn't patronise the restaurant if they were," she maintained.