Calls to Implement Mandatory Low Emissions Zone in Torrevieja

The Compromís Los Verdes collaborative group in Torrevieja demand that the council immediately apply the low emissions zone (ZBE) in the municipality to comply with European regulations and undertake the obligation that Europe dictated more than a year ago.

The Los Verdes have considered that the low emissions zone (ZBE) should have been operating in Torrevieja for many months as it is one of the Spanish cities where its application is mandatory due to its population size and the high levels of pollution they suffer in certain areas of the municipality and communication routes that support a high density of traffic on a daily basis, to which we must also add the considerable aging of the public and private vehicle fleet.

The greens explained that the Climate Change Law approved in 2021 establishes that this regulation is mandatory throughout Spanish territory for all towns and cities with more than 50,000 inhabitants from January 2023. Torrevieja announced last month of October that was drafting an ordinance to regulate the ZBE, to delimit certain streets and walks with the aim of reducing traffic to unsuitable vehicles and protecting some areas of the urban centre from pollution.

Some measures that Los Verdes consider insufficient, as stated by the former mayor of Los Verdes, José Manuel Dolón, who has warned that “we are waiting to be able to appear in the administrative file and present, where appropriate, the considerations and/or allegations that “We deem appropriate to improve the proposed text.”

For José Manuel Dolón, “the haste and enthusiasm with which the PP processed the acquisition of privately owned land and buildings have nothing to do with the tranquillity with which the application of measures against global warming is approached, which are not a priority for the mayor, Eduardo Dolón, nor for his government team, just as is happening throughout Spain with the climate change denialist right.”

“In addition to the special particularities that traffic mobility as a whole has in the municipality of Torrevieja given the presence of the two lagoons that make up the Las Salinas de La Mata y Torrevieja Natural Park that runs through a narrow corridor, with a massive presence of urbanisations and buildings, which greatly hinders mobility generated by the silting and even the collapse of traffic in various parts of the municipality, as well as on the most important and strategic roads,” the former mayor detailed.

As José Manuel Dolón explained, “all of this can be seen with special singularity on the national highway CN-332 and the autonomous highways CV-90 and CV-95, the three most important communication routes between Torrevieja and the municipalities of the region of the Vega Baja del Segura, in the province of Alicante and the rest of Spain. Arteries that cause part of the traffic to move to other interior streets of the municipality, thus increasing the density and frequency of traffic in neighbourhoods and urbanisations of Torrevieja that were not designed for this, but for the use and communication of its residents”.

For Los Verdes, “the consequence of the entire policy of speculation and overexploitation of land suffered in Torrevieja during the 33 years of municipal governments of the PP has caused a considerable increase in road insecurity and atmospheric and noise pollution that seriously damages health. and the tranquillity of its residents and visitors. And all this is added to the constant refusal of the PP to renew the General Urban Planning Plan (PGOU) in order to continue with the development of an à la carte urban planning in which favours for its cronies and hooliganism like those of freedom prevail. typology, hotel use or liberalisation for the implementation of large shops and stores.”

According to José Manuel Dolón, “in this context it is essential that traffic in certain areas of Torrevieja is regulated and has some limitation measure, such as the application of the ZBE, which at Los Verdes Compromís we demand be applied without further delay and that it includes in its design all the residential areas that currently suffer from the undesirable increase in traffic and pollution.”