Justice files the PSOE complaint about the M-40 crematorium

The resolution indicates, therefore, that the steps taken by the Madrid City Council in granting the license comply with environmental regulations and that, in fact, the municipal authorities “could hardly do anything other than what they did.” With this decree of outright archiving, the Prosecutor’s Office, after examining the facts, closes the door to an investigation regarding this issue.

The first license request by Parcesa to install a crematorium oven in the M-40 funeral home was denied by the Activities Agency of the Madrid City Council on March 30, 2016 in application of the General Environmental Protection Ordinance when the project presented failed to comply with the minimum distance of 250 meters with respect to homes, recalls the Prosecutor’s Office. However, in 2021, the company appealed to the Supreme Court, which upheld the appeal presented and ordered the retroaction of the procedure to the moment before its denial, so that the minimum distance would only be required “when other less restrictive requirements or limiting measures such as emissions control at the source are insufficient on their own to guarantee the protection of human health and the environment. The urban planning file continued and culminated with the technical report favorable to the activity license that was granted last August.

Faced with the arguments raised by the PSOE in its complaint, the Justice determines that there has been no “arbitrariness in the municipal action denounced.” He also describes as “frankly weak” the basis of the socialist complaint that argued that this crematorium may pose a risk to the health of residents and violates a municipal ordinance. And it ensures that the Consistory has adjusted in its technical report at all times to what is established in the regional law on Air Quality and Protection of the Atmosphere and the resolution of the General Directorate of Energy Transition of the Community of Madrid (July 2024).

The Prosecutor’s Office assures that “in view of the report and the aforementioned resolution”, “it is difficult not to reach any conclusion other than the one favorable to the granting of the activity license. Remember, also, that, once the works necessary for its operation have been carried out, the mandatory operating license will be required, as established in the municipal report, “which can only be granted if the execution of the facilities complies with and adjusts to the licensed project.” , after inspection.

“They have been deceived”

The mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, has thanked in a “deep and sincere” way that the socialist spokesperson, Reyes Maroto, took the license of the crematorium of the M-40 funeral home to the Prosecutor’s Office because this judicial instance has confirmed “that this City Council could not do anything other than grant that license.” This “has been systematically refuted by Reyes Maroto, to such an extent that he decided to go to the Prosecutor’s Office to report a possible crime against this Government team,” the mayor stressed during his visit to the new video surveillance cameras in Plaza del Dos. of May.

«Reyes Maroto has settled the debate, perhaps not in the sense that she intended, obviously, but in the sense that all the residents of the south of Madrid know that both the PSOE and Más Madrid have deceived them for months, systematically, “They have lied and hidden the reality from them,” Almeida assumed. His government, he affirms, has always stated that they did not like the crematorium but that they had to comply with judicial resolutions.

They will study more legal actions

For their part, the Municipal Socialist Group has stated that they “respect” the decision of the Prosecutor’s Office, although they consider that “it has not gone into assessing the possible environmental damage that we denounce since the crematorium has not yet begun to operate.”

In any case, they add, they continue to express “reservations regarding such granting of an activity license with the current municipal regulations in hand and, especially, taking into account the characteristics of the project presented by Parcesa”: “It should be remembered that the project includes a chimney emergency that could expel unpurified gases in an uncontrolled manner in the event of a failure of the main system and on many other occasions (such as a programmed temperature increase, failures in the main chimney draft fan, interruption of the electrical supply, or other factors additional)”, they point out.

Finally, the Madrid socialists maintain that they will continue to support the neighborhood struggle of the residents of Usera and Villaverde and will study “other possible legal actions that prevent this crematorium from being put into operation.”