Oscar Izquierdo, president of FEPECO, has held an extensive working meeting with Ramón Miranda, president of the Garachiquense A’Gara Group, where they analyzed in detail the worrying situation in which the northern municipality is immersed.
The highest representative of the construction employers’ association has been blunt in stating that “La Isla Baja, as a whole, is depopulating and aging rapidly and frustratingly, it is literally dying, especially Garachico, which is losing steam at a forced pace. “There is no vigorous public initiative and instead, private investments are slowed down, in an inconceivable and incomprehensible way.”
The concern of the employers’ association is increasing: “We are enormously concerned. Faced with this situation, your City Council, instead of promoting sustainable, orderly and efficient urban development that attracts citizens, SMEs and micro-enterprises, does the complete opposite, systematically preventing their implementation or execution of new construction, creating difficulties for the reform and rehabilitation of buildings with all kinds of obstacles, some reasonable and amendable, but others, frankly annoying, arbitrary, grotesque and inadmissible. , which in many cases, refers to the Island Council, to avoid speaking out and making decisions, which is what governing public officials have to do. Garachico is adrift and the bad thing is that he is dragging the area down and endangering a future of stability.”
Ramón Miranda points out that “we cannot speak of a true “Insular Ring” in Tenerifeif serious and highly responsible action is not contemplated between the Icod/ San Juan de la Rambla/ Los Realejos sections, especially between these last two municipalities, due to the enormous road danger and landslides that exist today in the TF-5 among the aforementioned places.
At the same time, the Baja Island cannot become even more isolated if there are no improvements in the roads that connect it with Icod de los Vinos, to connect with the “Insular Ring” or, an action of great efficiency and road safety. on the Tf-421, which connects the municipalities of Garachico and El Tanque and its subsequent connection with the already reiterated “Insular Ring” in its direction to the south of the island.”
Ramón Miranda and Oscar Izquierdo agree that the housing policy in the towns of the Northwest of the Island and more specifically in the Baja Island, is of first and urgent need, requiring a political and institutional commitment between the different Public administrations. The good connection with the “Insular Ring” has to be linked to that social building policy, which entails appreciation and facilities for the implementation of new investments. In this way, it will be ensured that the citizens of the municipality do not leave. It is necessary to build, both in the case, with all the required heritage protection, and in the middle-distance neighborhoods, since they are enduring a progressive depopulation and consequently a galloping aging, which makes it plausible that many of these could tend to disappear. .
Ramón Miranda insists that “the Port of Garachico, built in 2008 and completed in 2012 by the Government of the Canary Islands and where 35 million euros were invested, it should be the benchmark for the economic and social development of the Northwest of Tenerife and by extension the North of the island. Its connection with the island of La Palma has been, is and will be, the strategic line that cannot be lost sight of. The investment has been made, but 12 years have passed, without giving it the efficiency and operability that we would all have wanted.”
