Residents of Santa Catalina, in La Guancha, warn that the new section of the Insular Ring will end more than five centuries of history in the neighborhood and this has been transferred in their allegations to the Ministry of Public Works, Transport and Housing of the Government of Canary Islands, which have not yet been answered. They clarify that they are not against the closure of the Ring but that it be done partially since it will not solve the current problems of the TF-5.
However, what worries them the most is the “null sensitivity” that the editorial team has had with the history of Santa Catalina by proposing a route that has not taken into account its heritage value and that, they insist, “will end with the most emblematic of its long and extensive history.
One of those elements that will be severed will be the fountain -displaced a few meters from its original location- and the spring that gave rise to the neighborhood and the town of La Guancha. “It is outrageous that its existence is not even included in the environmental report of the project,” they maintain from the Puertas Quemada neighborhood association, adding that the project does not include preventive measures to preserve what remains of the source after the works have begun.
The waters of this spring, which rises at the bottom of the ravine, on the slope facing San Juan de la Rambla, flowed for five centuries through uncovered sewers and on land, until well into the 20th century, when it was channeled through pipes due to to its insalubrity, so much so that in 1920 the neighborhood suffered an epidemic of typhus.
For all these reasons, they request that not only its channel be respected, but also that its birthplace be prevented from being covered by the channeling works of the ravine.
Other of the singularities that will disappear, according to the neighbors, will be its cultivation areas and the terraces, built since the 16th century and that for 500 years have given sustenance to the inhabitants of the neighborhood. “We have all lamented seeing the lava flows burying the banana crops in La Palma, unfortunately, in this case, it is a natural phenomenon, but here and due to some unfortunate decisions we are going to bury orchards of crops that have been built with the savings of the neighbors”, lament the inhabitants of this nucleus.
Another of their concerns is the La Cañada path, which has been used since aboriginal times for transhumance and, above all, after the conquest. It was one of the so-called “sea to summit” paths, which, starting from the center of the neighborhood, ascended rapidly to the middle areas, where it converged with the so-called Royal Middle Way. For many centuries it was used to extract wood and pitch, which came down from the pine forest to the piers in the neighborhood or the nearby ones in San Juan de la Rambla.
Starting in the 17th century, once the Dulce Nombre de Jesús church and the neighborhood church were founded, they came under the control of the new parish. “It was the path that allowed the neighbors to fulfill their obligations as a good Christian, since in order to attend important religious services or solve any paperwork, they had to climb the steep path from La Cañada to the town center,” say the neighbors. .
They insist that this road “has an anthropological value much higher than that established in the environmental study of the work, in which nothing is collected about its history and importance as an ancient communication route”, and at present, “there is no It only serves to access the land that adjoins it, but it is also a living memory of our ancestors.”
Government response
In relation to this last path, the Director of Infrastructures of the Government of the Canary Islands, José Luis Delgado, assures that La Cañada and the Camino Real will be recovered thanks to the work team for the Recovery of Historical Trails and Paths of the University of La Laguna, in specifically from the Faculty of History, with which the regional department will collaborate “since it is an asset of interest that cannot be lost.”
