The government plans to have coordinated 847 residential road resurfacing projects by the end of next year, not to mention work on residential roads in Gozo coordinated by the Gozo Ministry.

An Urban Development and Roads Ministry spokesman said that between the 2003 election and last year, 379 residential roads had been resurfaced from scratch.

In August last year, Minister Jesmond Mugliett announced a work programme for 2006-2008 for the resurfacing of 454 residential roads in 47 localities. Another 15 roads were added to the list, bringing up the total investment to Lm9 million (EUR21 million).

So far, work on 165 of these roads has been completed, so 544 residential roads were resurfaced between 2003 and this month.

By the end of this year, the government plans to have covered 45 per cent of the 2006-2008 work programme and by the end of 2008, barring the general election getting in its way, it plans to have resurfaced 847 roads.

The work assigned in the 2006-2008 residential roadworks programme includes roads in Mtarfa and Qormi, all of which have now been completed.