Public attending the session of the Municipal Plenary of the Cartagena City Council on Tuesday. /
The executive gets the Plenary to reject the photovoltaic moratorium next to the Mar Menor
The Soltec company has agreed with the neighborhood representatives to incorporate into its project for a 90-hectare solar garden in El Algar the suggestions of the residents to “increase the measures aimed at reducing its visual impact on the landscape” and prevent “it from limiting the growth of the town”, as explained this Tuesday by the government councilor Alejandra Gutiérrez.
The mayor informed the Municipal Plenary of that promise made at a meeting held on Monday night with representatives of the neighborhood council and the neighborhood association of the population. She did so after voting against the request for a moratorium on this type of facility in District 7, included in a motion by United We Can. The proposal did not go ahead when the government team and Vox rejected it and despite the support of MC.
The debate on the initiative on the authorization of this plant, agreed in a municipal commission last week, was followed in the Plenary Hall by a group of neighbors who expressed their discrepancies out loud. The mayor, Noelia Arroyo, had to repeatedly ask for order so that the interventions could continue. Also, fifty people demonstrated in front of the Town Hall. “This City Council does not represent us,” they chanted.
“We ask that the Plenary urge the local government to urgently convene the special information commission on renewable energy projects, inviting the Campo de Cartagena Alliance for the Planning of Photovoltaic Installations and for it to report on all those projects that have a license granted or that are under study or processing, ”said the municipal spokesperson for United We Can Leli García. She recalled that municipal groups are not present at these meetings.
The proposal to include the aforementioned alliance did not go ahead, but Arroyo assured that opposition groups will have a place in it. “I admit that I did not know that they are not in it and, since the deputy mayor, Ana Belén Castejón, who chairs that commission, is absent from this Plenary for health reasons, I announce that they will be part of it,” said the councilor.
During the session, the aforementioned citizen alliance had the use of the floor. Its spokesman, Santiago del Álamo, indicated that its members feel “cheated” by the granting of permits “that do not meet even the environmental criteria, they leave dialogue aside.” In his opinion, it is necessary to bet on “an orderly installation, with guarantees, avoiding the dominant position of large investors, sustainability and respect for heritage, agreed with all neighbors.” His intervention did not get the government team to support the Unidos Podemos proposal either.
During the debate, several attendees at the session in the Plenary Hall blamed the president of the Federation of Neighborhood Associations, Sonia Montoya, who by not opposing the El Algar orchard “defends her own interests, not those of the neighbours”. “Something smells bad in all of this,” MC councilor Jesús Giménez later added, to whom Noelia Arroyo replied in the same vein regarding Santiago del Álamo, as spokesperson for the citizen alliance that promotes the moratorium in district 7.
#local #government #announces #measures #reduce #visual #impact #solar #farm #Algar
