Aguirre’s ghost freeway threatens Ayuso’s accounts: the development firm claims 278 million and not using a automotive having ever circulated | Madrid News | EUROtoday

The building firm of the M-203, a 12.5 kilometer freeway promoted by the Esperanza Aguirre govt that has by no means been completed, claims 278.8 million euros from the Community of Madrid in court docket, in line with documentation it accessed THE COUNTRY. Isabel Díaz Ayuso’s group faces this vital potential financial breakdown simply because it finishes the ultimate particulars of the Budget undertaking for 2025, which it’s going to current this Wednesday, after which course of it in Parliament till the top of December. The judicial battle is yet one more instance of the poisoned inheritance that Aguirre left to his successors by means of failed works: from never-finished railway infrastructure (such because the Móstoles-Navalcarnero prepare) to roads on which a automotive has by no means circulated (such because the M -203, so ghostly that Hollywood filmings are supplied), passing by means of Metro line 7B (which has induced the demolition of 73 properties in San Fernando de Henares).

As a consequence, Díaz Ayuso has confronted the fee of a whole lot of tens of millions for selections made by the previous baroness when she was answerable for the area (2003-2011). A invoice that can develop exponentially if the court docket determines that the Administration should handle the declare of Autopista Alcalá-O’Donnell, a Ferrovial subsidiary.

How is it attainable that the development firm now claims 278.8 million, if the Community has already paid it 73 in 2021? The cause, explains a authorities spokesperson, is that the Administration, following a court docket choice, compensated the corporate three years in the past for the execution of the work, and that now it’s demanding “more in relation to lost profits.” That is to say, Ferrovial is asking to be compensated for what it has not charged for managing a concession that was going to be 30 years, and underneath the toll modality. “What they are claiming is for the generation of interest and for extraordinary expenses that the concessionaire understands (damages derived from lost profits), which they quantify at 278,876,434 euros,” provides this interlocutor.

This is how this million-dollar downside began. In 2005, when the undertaking was launched, the target was to attach the M-100 and the A-2 (in Alcalá de Henares) with the M-208 and the R-3, already close to Mejorada del Campo. The building firm would pay for all the pieces after which function the freeway underneath a toll regime for 3 many years, as Aguirre introduced, boasting that the administration would get the freeway totally free. It was deliberate that greater than 2.7 million autos would flow into by means of it per yr.

However, two technical issues instantly arose that have been identified from the start. On the one hand, how you can overcome the AVE strains, which was achieved by altering the route. And on the opposite, how you can join with the radial 3, to which the concessionaire of that street was opposed, alleging that the union would hurt the amount of visitors on its freeway, and due to this fact its enterprise. The then Ministry of Public Works didn’t give its authorization to the connection, based mostly on these causes, and Ferrovial deserted the work in 2007. Everything ought to have been prepared for the inauguration a yr later, in 2008. And it nearly was: when the work, there have been 300 meters of the route left to do, along with protecting the already put in pavement. Since then, the 2 sides have been combating in court docket whereas the street deteriorates.

“The claim refers to compensation for damages corresponding to the termination of the public works concession contract,” explains a Ferrovial spokesperson. “In 2007, a series of incidents arose that made it impossible to continue the works. Alcalá O’Donnell Highway [la concesionaria, filial de Ferrovial] prepared a modification of the project to solve the incidents that arose in the execution of the contract,” he provides. “However, the works could not be resumed because the Administration did not make the necessary land available to the concessionaire to execute the link with the R-3,” he provides in regards to the second through which the lawsuits started. “The resolution of the contract did not occur until November 3, 2017, when the Administration decided to process the determination of the amount of the Equity Value of the Investment (VPI) and the concessionaire’s damages in two different files.”

That first file, Ferrovial particulars, is the one which the Community paid in 2021. The second, whose quantity is uncalculated, in line with the corporate, is the one that’s now being settled in court docket. In parallel, the street has been used for unlawful races, coaching for cyclists and runners… however it nonetheless doesn’t fulfill its authentic objective.

Former president Cristina Cifuentes, keen to complete the infrastructure, was devoured by the grasp case. And Ángel Garrido, who as Minister of Transportation was ready to execute the compensation and research the viability of the undertaking, was taken away by the electoral advance determined in March 2021 by Díaz Ayuso, and which blew up the federal government of coalition that the PP and Cs had fashioned.

In 2021, when the federal government of the present president accredited paying the 73.4 million euros, the tender for the works to finish the route was launched, which required fixing the technical issues that had paralyzed the undertaking. This method had the implicit help of the Chamber of Accounts, which on the finish of 2022 urged the Executive to “guarantee the viability and implementation” of the funding “or, if not, proceed to its regularization.”

However, greater than two years later, nothing is understood in regards to the reactivation of the street, which languishes and not using a single automotive circulating on it, whereas threatening to open a critical gap within the regional public accounts.

“Currently the M-203 is pending environmental consultation,” reads the documentation despatched by the federal government to the Assembly on the finish of July, and referring to the intention to renew the freeway undertaking. Meanwhile, the M-203 stays on the record of ghost infrastructures in Madrid, became a big scar in the course of a dry land. Something comparable occurs with the prepare that was to attach Móstoles with Navalcarnero, which at the moment is a sum of blocked tunnels and cement ditches by means of which not a single convoy has circulated, even though the undertaking has consumed a whole lot of tens of millions. Or with the San Martín de la Vega prepare, designed within the warmth of Warner Park, inaugurated, after which closed.