“We are fed up. Here, you cannot study or rest on a Saturday afternoon and it is a situation that repeats itself every week, sometimes several days a week. “I called the local police a long time ago, but so far they haven’t come.” A resident of the area surrounding the abandoned Valencia Formula 1 street circuit, in the area adjacent to El Grau, has expressed outrage at a new episode of illegal racing, in this case involving motorcycles, and at the inaction municipal authorities. : “Bringing in the police from time to time is not the solution. What needs to be done is to prevent the entry of motor vehicles and clean the area, making it usable by citizens until it is urbanized.
Concretely, it was this Saturday afternoon that a group of bikers gathered to take the bends of the old route at full speed, causing nuisance in the form of noise throughout the neighborhood. As reported by elDiario.es, this situation has been occurring for months both in this area and in the Marina de València, on a straight line about 800 meters south of the site which was also part of the circuit.
The vice-president of the El Grau neighborhood association, Vicente Martínez, has already requested that vehicle access be avoided in the part of the circuit located next to the El Grau cemetery and that a corridor be provisionally provided for cyclists and pedestrians until the development of the urban plan. . “The underlying problem is the abandonment of this whole part of the city. We preferred the project presented by the previous government team, which was a real green delta, since the current municipal executive divided it into roads, limiting pedestrian access to Desembocadura Park; In any case, we are asking for a partial adaptation of the territory,” he commented.
The urban circuit is integrated into the Integrated Action Program (IAP) of El Grau, which is in the processing phase. The previous government team of Compromís and PSPV proposed the reconversion of the route into a bio-healthy pedestrian promenade, but the current executive of the PP and Vox considered this option “a waste of resources”, so it will be integrated like the roads. of the future residential area.
Currently, the entire part adjacent to El Grau and Natzaret is semi-fenced, abandoned and even a shanty town has proliferated.
In June last year, the Generalitat Valenciana paid the last 7.5 million euros corresponding to the 60 million euro credit requested at the time to finance part of the road construction costs. The loan began to be repaid in 2016 and was valid for eight years at a rate of 7.5 million per year. In addition, 6.7 million euros were paid in interest, making a total of 66.7 million euros returned. The total cost of the street circuit that former president Francisco Camps had promised at zero cost was 98 million euros, while the Generalitat Valenciana assumed an expense of 308 million for the various costs of organizing the races, including the construction of the circuit.
