The Community of Madrid denounces that the Rivas City Council (IU-PSOE) keeps publicly displaying a model of its project to cover the metro tracks, despite the fact that the action “currently does not have” the favorable report from the technical services of the regional Directorate General of Infrastructures.
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Sources from the Ministry of Transport have indicated to La Vanguardia that the project “is in the phase of technical assessment and evaluation,” so “there is not yet a definitive technical approval that “supports its viability in the terms publicly presented.”
Furthermore, they criticize that the mayor of the municipality, Aída Castillejo (IU), is “fully aware” of this situation, since, they add, “she has received the corresponding acknowledgment of receipt in which this circumstance was formally communicated to her.”
Informative project
Therefore, the Ministry of Transport warns that the public display of this model “may generate a mistaken perception among the residents,” as they are being given the idea that the project “already has technical or administrative support,” when that support “has not occurred to date.”
Specifically, the Rivas City Council presented an exhibition about this metro covering project during its San Isidro festivities, with “an informative objective” and “to explain to the public” the history of the project, its current status, and the urban transformation it will bring to Rivas.
In any case, the goal was for residents “to be able to participate in the design” of the future park that will cover more than 135,000 square meters of surface, according to sources from the City Council to Efe.
However, it was emphasized in the presentation that the Community of Madrid has had the “basic project” since early March and that “the corresponding report is awaited,” which must be issued within a maximum period of three months from its registration to continue the processing.
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Despite everything, the same sources recall that the City Council has already secured the necessary funding to start the works through the Development Bank of the Council of Europe, as reported in the last municipal plenary session.
This situation has also been communicated to the Community of Madrid, which was invited to the public presentation of the project installed during the Rivas Festivities “and declined to attend.”
A project that started in 2019
The municipal government highlights that the City Council has been working on this solution since 2019 and that “it has kept the Community of Madrid informed from the beginning of the process,” also requesting its institutional and technical collaboration to advance a strategic project for the city, although the first report from the Community of Madrid regarding the project was issued three years later, in November 2022.
And they regret that, until now, it has been the City Council that has developed the technical solution, promoted the urban and environmental processing, and secured the necessary funding to make the project viable, “despite being a civil work that should have the collaboration of the Community of Madrid.”
Therefore, they ask that from now on the Community “institutionally collaborate” so that the administrative procedure continues to advance and the project can become a reality “as soon as possible,” considering that if the Community of Madrid issued the corresponding reports, the work could be tendered at the beginning of 2027.
