The Madrid City Council has decided to paralyze the construction of 12 of the 16 new cleaning cantons due to neighborhood complaints. The delegate for the Environment and Mobility, Borja Carabante, told the opposition on Monday "that the construction of 12 of the 16 cantons of the city is paralyzed until the final location is agreed with the municipal groups."
Carabante has reported that it will set up "immediately" this week a working group with the spokespersons of the entire corporation to analyze "one by one" the location of the 12 of the 16 cantons that are planned to be built to improve services city cleaning in all neighborhoods, including new ones. "Until the final location is agreed among all, they are paralyzed," reads the statement.
Initially, "the construction of the four that have already begun is maintained: the one on Calle Sinfonía, in Latina; the one on Camino del Pozo del Tío Raimundo, in Villa de Vallecas; the one on Santeras, in Vicálvaro, and the of Treseta street in Carabanchel".
On the contrary, the other 12 are pending new relocations.
Residents of some of the affected neighborhoods, such as Las Tablas, Montecarmelo and Arroyo del Fresno, had already requested a meeting with Carabante a couple of weeks ago, but said council has not specified a date.
Given the silence of the consistory, this past weekend there were neighborhood rallies in the plots affected for the construction of said cantons and it was decided to hold rallies every Thursday afternoon until the May 28 elections in the plots; as well as two demonstrations on April 23 and May 6 between the neighborhoods of Montecarmelo and Arroyo del Fresno. For these mobilizations, the relevant authorizations have already been requested from the Government Delegation.
Similarly, the three neighborhood associations have asked the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, to mediate when they did not obtain a response from the City Council for the requested meeting. The paradox arises that Carabante is a neighbor of the Arroyo del Fresno neighborhood.
Of the four facilities planned to be implemented in the Fuencarral-El Pardo district, for example, the one planned to be located in the Montecarmelo neighborhood affects certain homes, a school, restaurants in the area, as well as traffic, which has already collapsed in hours tip. The one in Las Tablas, located in a more industrial area, would affect traffic above all, since it is intended to be located at one of the main entrances to the neighborhood.
According to Lorenzo Álvarez, president of the Las Tablas Neighborhood Association, "more than a week after submitting the request for a meeting with Carabante, we still have no response from the City Council. We believe it is urgent that they receive us in order to listen to the existing problems in relation to the erratic decision to locate the cleaning cantons in front of homes or schools".
For their part, Fernando Mardones and Charo del Campo, presidents respectively of the Neighborhood Associations of the Montecarmelo neighborhood, have insisted that the neighborhood groups have valid alternatives to those plots that could be used for the relocation of the cleaning cantons. Specifically, it is claimed that a single canton be built on the old land of the District Artillery Barracks, land that is planned to be given a new use, but which is far from the residential area of the aforementioned neighborhoods. The aim is to unify and build a large one for the two neighborhoods because that plot is large enough. The cantons are centers where cleaning trucks are operational 24 hours a day, thus generating traffic and noise.
According to the associations' spokespersons, it has also been agreed to attend tomorrow, Tuesday, April 18, at 4:30 p.m., the plenary session of the Municipal Board of the Fuencarral-El Pardo district, where two proposals presented by the socialist and mixed in relation to the construction of these cantons of cleaning.
These actions are framed within the existing problems in recent weeks in the city of Madrid in relation to the City Council's plans to build various cleaning cantons in various neighborhoods of Madrid, in accordance with what is included in the specifications of the cleaning service approved on financial year 2021 and whose works were to begin shortly.
According to the associations, the City Council should assess the relocation of the cantons to other plots within the neighborhoods (they insist that they do not want to take them to other spaces outside of them), since there are alternatives on municipal land where they can undertake the construction of these facilities, but further from residential areas.
