The Local Committee of the Canarian Coalition in Teguise has shown "its surprise to see that the declaration of general interest of an offshore wind farm by the Government of the Canary Islands to benefit a private company, involves modifying the General Plan of Teguise".
As explained by the local secretary, Olivia Duque, on February 24, the Ministry of Ecological Transition, Fight against Climate Change and Territorial Planning granted the permit by which the execution of the project "Vista Mar Wind Farm" is agreed in the municipality of Teguise, specifically in the area of Las Caletas, declaring it of general interest and "thereby altering the municipal planning, without the approval of the City Council." From CC they affirm that "the Cabildo of Lanzarote, for its part, did not even bother to issue a report (neither in favor nor against, so it was understood to be favorable) in the consultation process".
"It turns out that we, as a City Council, report that the project violates the General Plan, but then the Government of the Canary Islands declares it of general interest and we cannot do anything else. We are left without tools to fight against the Government's position of skipping municipal regulations," laments Duque.
From the nationalist formation they point out that "the Teguise City Council had previously addressed the aforementioned Ministry warning that the project in question altered the planning and, therefore, did not respect what was expected." In this regard, Olivia Duque states that when CC governed in the regional Executive, "the renewable energy projects that were launched for the island were of public ownership because we understand that this is how things should be done."
Duque insists that "from the Canarian Coalition we have always defended the need for an island planning on where to install sustainable energy, prioritizing the sites where less environmental and landscape impact is generated".
She also insists that "alternative energy projects that are publicly owned must be put first and, above all, that the Cabildo of Lanzarote determines where they should be located", as the Lanzarote parliamentarian of the Nationalist Group, Jesús Machín Tavío, also recalled on February 14.
"The problem is that with the Socialist Party we are exposed to the interests of private companies and not to the will of the population of Lanzarote," asserts Duque.
With this statement, the nationalist leader criticizes "the double standard of the Government of Ángel Víctor Torres, underlining the ease with which the general interest of some things is declared."
And, as the also councilor of the Villa Consistory recalls, "it is a pity that the formula that Teguise gave to the Ministry of Education to remove the barracks from the Costa Teguise school was not taken into account, which was, precisely, to declare it a good of general interest"; something that the Government has rejected.
Likewise, she insists on "that double discourse of the PSOE, which criticizes requests from private individuals to initiate modifications of the General Plan, as in the case of the urban skeletons of Costa Teguise, with the sole purpose of legalizing, but not that the Government of the Canary Islands decides to do so unilaterally to benefit other companies," says Duque.
