PINAR SI, AUTOVÍA NO

If there are demonstrations on people’s minds today they will be for May 1 when people will take to the streets to voice their fears over job losses and the threat of unemployment.

So here’s a date for your diary – May 24.

On that day the people of San Roque and the wider Campo de Gibraltar –indeed Gibraltar itself – will be taking to the streets to demand that the new A7 dual carriageway does not cut through or come near the Pinar del Rey.

The Pinar del Rey is a 200-year-old woodland, a protected zone in San Roque that is home to a rich mix of flora and fauna plus valuable water aquifers. More important still it is the green lung for the entire Campo de Gibraltar area which houses heavy polluting industries that carry a high mortality rate from cancer and breathing illnesses in their polluting wake.

Now the government in Madrid has swept aside environmental fears and has approved plans to bring the motorway carrying heavy goods traffic for the port and industrial zones right through the corner of the woodland. A green zone that is used by thousands of people from the Campo de Gibraltar and Gibraltar to relax at weekends especially in the spring and autumn months.

Verdemar - Ecologists en Acción along with many residents of the area have been fighting these proposals ever since they were made public. Sadly the former socialist-led administration at San Roque town hall sat on its hands but the new Partido Popular controlled administration has joined the campaign to stop the road.

Now I am too long in the tooth to believe that the politicians were and are doing other than suits their agenda. The socialist town hall did not want to cross the PSOE government’s plan and the Partido Popular is only too happy to put a spoke in the government’s heavy lorries wheels. Whatever! What is important is that now there is a united front of town hall and people against the road plans.

So on Sunday May 24 a politically independent protest will be held in San Roque against the dual carriageway which everybody can support. It will leave from the main church and make its way to the Alameda at noon. If you live in the Campo de Gibraltar it’s vital that you add your support - because not only is the Pinar at risk – so too is your future health and that of your children and their children too!