The case of Reggio Emilia: a former workshop, a war area, is returning to urban life with a redevelopment plan but there are doubts about the deep reclamation
“If you ask me if there can be bombs in there, out of common sense and logic I answer yes”, explains Ad Affaritaliani John Laflorence, former reclamation agent, still BCM technical assistant (the experts who are responsible for discovering the unexploded bombs left on the war grounds). Lafirenze is currently a collaborator of the National Association of Civil War Victims (ANVCG).
Again in 2018, two unexploded bombs were found in the area of the former Officine Reggiane, 26 hectares close to the railway and the historic center of Reggio Emilia, with the area in front being evacuated. Yet the area is part of a redevelopment and urban regeneration plan, which came to the attention of the lawyer and deputy of Reggio Emilia Gianluca Vinci who with a question to the Minister of Defense Guido Crosetto asks if it is “aware of the situation of serious risk from explosive devices of war, present in the former Officine Reggiane area”.
This is because the former Officine, an industrial colossus in central Italy born in 1904 for the production of locomotives, planes, freight wagons, carriages, vehicles, active during the Second World War and bombed by the Allies are preparing to return to life with urban activities including university residences.
The Municipality of Reggio Emilia, in order to recover the area, set up the Urban Transformation Company STU Reggiane spa. On the area, Vinci always writes, insist “at least two redevelopment programs, i.e. the agreement between the Municipality, Unimore and Stu Reggiane and Unindustria to allocate the 15C warehouse of the former Reggiane to teaching activities for a value of around 10 million euros and the agreement between the Municipality of Reggio Emilia, the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Acer and Stu Reggiane spa for the candidacy of the Office Building of the former Officine Reggiane (the so-called Building M), to host university accommodation, services for students and for the district, with a total value of 14.1 million euros, candidate for the tender of the Ministry of Education for the disbursement of funding for interventions aimed at the construction of university residential structures planned, in part, with the resources of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (Pnrr)”.
The problem, as the deputy writes, is that many of these bombs they are not identifiable by sight but a deeper preemptive search action should be performed to be sure the area is clear.
“I have a long experience in the sector”, says Giovanni Lafirenze “I started in 1983. Years ago we carried out a reclamation of 3500 meters between the Reggio Emilia railways and the nearby bridge, with the Municipality of Reggio Emilia as the client. It is the area where the former workshops are located and it is a bombed area. We found three plane bombs 1.5 meters deep and a heavier bomb crater 6 meters deep. It is the testimony of the bombing of the area. The factories were bombed, there are testimonies”.
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