The Valencia City Council, led by María José Català, yesterday granted the new plant construction license to Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) for the construction of a building for industrial use intended to house a new cold logistics platform with offices that will be located in the logistics activities area (ZAL) of the port of Valencia.
The Councilor for Urban Planning, Juan Giner, highlighted that, with this concession, “MSC has both a construction and activity license for the installation of a logistics platform within the ZAL; “In this way we can say that the mayor's word has been fulfilled.” The councilor highlighted that this platform represents an investment of more than 30 million euros on an area of more than 25,000 square meters next to the port of Valencia.
The concession comes after last March the Supreme Court declared in accordance with law the resolution, of December 17, 2018, of the Department of Housing, Public Works and Structure of the Territory of the Generalitat Valenciana that definitively approved the special plan of the logistics activities area of the port of Valencia.
Last week, the Port Authority of Valencia (APV) launched the logistics activities zone (ZAL) project of the port of Valencia with a meeting of the board of directors of Valencia Intermodal and Logistics Platform (VPI- Logistics) in the that “all the necessary procedures to activate the project” have been initiated. The news also came a few weeks after the Government authorized the works for the northern expansion of the port of Valencia.
The granting of the construction license to the MSC shipping company yesterday generated rejection from Compromís, a group that has always opposed the expansion of the port. For its spokesperson at the Valencia City Council, Papi Robles, the construction license that the Valencian City Council has granted to MSC in the port's ZAL represents “one more step on the part of Catalá and its government in condemning the city and especially the neighborhood of La Punta and the neighborhood of Nazaret, installing a container cemetery at the door of their house.” A project is being initiated “on an area that was illegally developed, as ruled by the TSJ of Valencia, and that will increase truck traffic and increase pollution,” he added.
In his complaint, Robles also pointed out that “there are already days when you cannot go out to play sports due to the high environmental pollution.” “This is the PP model in the midst of European green capital: trucks, containers, port and asphalt,” he concluded.
