The inhabitants of Montecarmelo commissioned a private survey from the Analysis and Research Group – on a sample of 301 people in a neighborhood of 21,000 inhabitants and a trust index of 95.5% – to take the pulse of the discontent that is being generated there. the cleaning canton and the SELUR base who want to build the Madrid City Hall near their homes and schools. The results, as expected, punish the PP, which collapses in votes in what had been one of its electoral strongholds in the last elections, and its voters flock to Vox. The project that José Luis Martínez-Almeida’s team insists on building there against their neighbors, all municipal opposition parties and of a resolution of the TSJM It can be very costly in electoral terms.
The survey, which takes into consideration several possible frameworks delimited by a margin of error of five points, highlights that, in the best case scenario for the popular party, Almeida’s party would go from the 61% obtained in the last elections to only 24%, while the far-right party would jump from 12% to 28%, which would make it the most voted force in Monte Carlo. A bad result in this neighborhood, which has always been loyal to the People’s Party at the polls, could jeopardize the absolute majority obtained by the PP in the last elections. with only one difference in place.
This situation would be what pollsters have called a “conservative scenario.” That is, the one that takes into account the margin of error to bring it as close as possible to the results of the last elections, in which the popular party won by a landslide. If we look at the other end of that margin, out of 100 people who voted for the PP, only 33 would do so again. “The president of the PP of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, should take action and bring common sense to this industrial aberration of the neighborhood,” comments a spokesperson for the Platform of the Affected of the Canton of Montecarlo.
The investigation also shows how decisive the cantonal issue was for the inhabitants of that neighborhood north of Madrid. 97% of them say they are aware of the topic, 1.7% say they have heard something and only 1.3% say it is a completely unknown topic. The interviewee, whose average profile is that of a 45-year-old university-educated and employed person, says he is particularly concerned about odors and proximity to schools and homes containing dangerous substances. Other issues of concern are the noise that will be caused by cleaning vehicles constantly coming in and out of there and the traffic they will generate.
The concern is largely due to the location the City Council chose to place it. It is located on a street corner, in the heart of the neighborhood, in a place that until now the neighbors have used as a green area, to play sports, walk the dogs or go and play with the children. For older people, a judgment of April issued by the Administrative Litigation Court number 9 of Madrid confirmed that the canton does not fit into the Montecarmelo district because the Municipality did not carry out the environmental studies for which it was obliged to transfer a project which, as demonstrated, is industrial to a residential area.
“The result of this kind of illogical decisions is that people who have voted for the PP all their lives stop doing so. It is no longer a neighborhood issue, it will influence the party,” says a member of the Monte Carlo Canton Stakeholders’ Platform. However, even if Justice and the inhabitants of Monte Carlo managed to convince Almeida to retract his decision to build it there, the space it will occupy is no longer the same nor can it be enjoyed in the same way since the operators of excavators and chainsaws raided it in the spring of this year.
At that time, the workers sent by the successful company to build the canton by surprise most of the trees were cut down from a vast area cordoned off and the rest transplanted a few meters away. There were a few days left until the start of summer, a risky time to carry out this operation due to the lack of rain and the heat. As some environmentalists warned at the time, the result was disastrous. The specimens dried up and died during June, July and August. By September there were none left alive. The neighbors then spoke, indignantly, of “hidden deforestation” and the “whitewashing” of the Martínez-Almeida executive.
That moment marked a before and after in the neighborhood struggle and generated a great mobilization, even though it coincided with the Easter holidays and many of the residents were outside Madrid. Despite this, the strength and coordination of those who oppose the project has been confirmed. The Platform for those affected by the Canton of Montecarlo has 20 WhatsApp groups and channels (some with more than 3,000 participants) with whom they coordinate every time those who have a balcony overlooking the problem area see several Municipal Police cars arriving, trucks carrying heavy machinery or anything they interpret as suspicious movements. When they launch a call to action, dozens of neighbors leave their homes and join a spontaneous protest that takes place within minutes to delay any movement of the City Council as much as possible.
But to the neighbors’ emotional concern of losing the main recreational space they have near their homes is added the proximity of the area chosen to store 117 vehicles for cleaning several educational centers. A few hundred meters from the site is the German School. At the same distance, the Sol Solito Nursery School and, a little further away, 400 meters away, the Santa María la Blanca School.
This particular issue worries 9 out of 10 interviewees, who underline that the canton should be in an industrial area, far from schools and homes. All the municipal opposition parties and various neighborhood associations from various nearby neighborhoods agree collectively on this point. Furthermore, the Associations of Mothers and Fathers (AMPAS) of three schools from Montecarmelo participated request in writing that the government of the Community of Madrid, chaired by Isabel Díaz Ayuso, intervene against José Luis Martinez-Almeida’s decision to establish the canton there. Something that, for the moment, has not happened and a spokesperson for the neighborhood platform recalls, for his part, that the fight continues: “The neighborhood does not give up”.
