Mateos rejects modifying the urban planning report for the...

Mateos rejects modifying the urban planning report for the Cáceres mine because “it would be prevaricating”

The mayor of Cáceres , Rafael Mateos , has shown his refusal this Thursday, in a plenary session, to modify the report of the Urban Planning Legal Service issued in the Scope Declaration , transferred to the regional Government, on the viability of the lithium mine
project in gallery in Valdeflórez, because that would be prevaricating.

The report issued last November establishes that the lithium processing plant, on EX-206, is compatible with the Municipal General Plan (PGM); Regarding underground activity, in accordance with current legislation, both municipal, regional and state, "the reports consider that the use of interior mining would not be incompatible with planning, depending on the depth."

City expansion

In the turn of collective interventions, in the May plenary session, the spokesperson for the AmA Cáceres collective , Santiago Márquez , stated that “ the technicians also make mistakes .” And the group considers that said report “is wrong in its conclusions; “It should be rectified and exact measurements made between the mining facilities and the developable land.”

In this regard, Márquez has stated that the exploitation of the lithium mine would compromise the expansion of the city: “It is a real nonsense that would prevent the urban expansion of the city towards the east and south”, since the mine “would remain in “middle of urbanizations and housing centers.”

And he asked in the plenary session “what is more important, the interest of a mining company or that of the population. We are going to compromise the expansion of Cáceres for at least 90 years due to the extendable permits for the mining company,” which is why he has urged the mayor to proceed with the rectification of the legal report.

“He says that technicians make mistakes, like anyone else; But when a technician makes a mistake, there is a channel to report that mistake and to rectify it,” Mateos said in his speech. And he has stressed that “a mayor nor any member of this corporation is going to rectify a legal report or a technical report, because that would be prevarication.”

“I do not come here to prevaricate, but quite the opposite, to ensure compliance with the law. You can be for or against, but the technicians have issued these reports freely. If not, they could have said it, they could have reported it themselves,” the mayor argued before adjourning the session.

And he has specified that “if we do not trust those who have to support the administrative files, we have a serious problem . ” And he has indicated to the group, whom he has thanked for their work "because they speak with knowledge of the facts", that if they do not consider the resolution in accordance with the law, they should challenge it through administrative and judicial means. And he concluded by pointing out that sowing doubts about legal reports “would be very serious and very damaging to any future file. I abide by the report, whether I like it more or less. And I am not going to act in a discretionary manner.”

https://www.elperiodicoextremadura.com/caceres-local/2024/05/16/mateos-rechaza-modificar-informe-urbanistico-102459068.html