The Motor Circuit, a project widely criticized in the Canary Islands for being considered one more chapter of the brick policy in the islandshas an environmental impact statement from 11 years ago, as stated in official documentation about the initiative that the Cabildo de Tenerife has released this week.
Ecologists warn that the environmental impact statement for the Motor Circuit has expired
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The text, signed in July 2022, indicates that, on September 30, 2011, the Official Gazette of the Canary Islands (BOC) published the approval of the Environmental Impact Statement (DIA) of the project called “Insular Motor Center Sports Complex”, promoted by the Island Council and which was presented this Tuesday along with a resounding protest led by environmentalists and scientists.
This week, the Tenerife Friends of Nature Association (ATAN) warned that said environmental resolution would have expiredsince the five years of validity would have already passed from the notification of the same until the beginning of the work.
However, the Cabildo hides behind, according to the new documents released this Tuesday, that the works did begin within that period of five years and that they were only paralyzed for a reason attributable to the construction company, so it would not be necessary a new day. The vice president of the insular institution, Enrique Arriaga, pointed out this morning on the regional radio that the resolution remains in force, despite the fact that this Monday he did not clarify the matter to questions from this newsroom.
The DIA del Circuito del Motor explains that “if the execution of the project is not started within five years” from the notification of the same, it will expire. The Cabildo understands that the “execution of the project” refers to the beginning of the works, which is why it marks August 23, 2016 as a key date, the day on which, according to what it highlights, the contractor Onda Rossa SL began the works related to The initiative.
After a year, the Cabildo decided to terminate the contract with the aforementioned company, considering that there was a delay in its execution. The award was 233,887.80 euros and was to be carried out in twenty-one months. The Tenerife institution now intends to reactivate the execution file and for this reason it has presented the latest advances of the project on Tuesday. Arriaga has ensured that all the paperwork on this issue is the order of the day.
Environmentalist lawyers have reminded this newsroom that the works of the Tenerife Motor Circuit, of which you can see images led by Carlos Alonso (Canarian Coalition), former president of the Island Council, began a few weeks before the 2011 DIA expired. Work began on August 23, 2016 and the official notification of the DIA in the Bulletin Official of the Canary Islands is from September 30, 2011. It could be understood that there was some final rush on the part of the promoting entity (Cabildo de Tenerife) to build something before the resolution lost its validity.
In addition, they point out that the modifications made public this week and that they are awaiting allegations are of a major cause, because, among other things, the layout of the circuit is being changed. “A new DIA would be needed” for something like this, add these same sources. “They are grasping at straws so as not to have to draft a new DIA based on the new environmental regulations, which would make things more complicated.”
In the action area of the Tenerife Motor Circuit there are up to 21 birds included in the National Catalog of Endangered Species, some of them in danger of extinction, such as the peregrine falcon, according to the 2011 DIA. It is foreseeable that this list has increased after the passage of a decade.
This Tuesday, almost 200 people, sponsored by eight environmental associations, have demonstrated against the Motor Circuit next to the Tenerife Auditorium, where the plan was precisely being exposed with the presence of the Formula 1 driver Carlos Sainz. At the same time, according to the agency Europe Press, numerous motor enthusiasts gathered to support the project. In the middle, a police device was deployed to avoid incidents.
