Torrelavega (EFE).- Javier López Estrada assumed a new term as mayor of Torrelavega this Saturday, which begins “with enthusiasm and gratitude” to the residents for the support shown at the polls, and with the aim of achieving in these four years ” that the city has more desire to look forward”.
López Estrada has been able to maintain the Mayor’s Office for his party, the PRC, and obtain the necessary majority (7 councilors) to sign another pact with the PSOE (six ediles), reissuing an agreement for a stable government that has worked between 2019 and 2023.
“Being mayor of your city is complicated, but history has shown that repeating as mayor is even more so, and proof of this is that my last three predecessors -Ildefonso Calderón (PP) and the socialists Lidia Ruiz Salmón and José Manuel Cruz Viadero – They didn’t have the same luck as me”, he explains in an interview with EFE.
“THE SAME ILLUSION”
He assures that the 28M electoral results “were positive” -his candidacy lost a councilor to the PP, which was the list with the most votes- and allows him to continue with the city project started in 2019. Even so, he acknowledges that the “favorable wave” to the popular ones it was so strong that they could not be better.
However, he stresses the importance of achieving an absolute majority with the PSOE “to form a strong and stable government” that can implement all the necessary policies to move the city forward.
To face the new legislature, he assures that he continues to have “the same enthusiasm” as when he first entered the City Council as a councilor in 2011, “but now with 12 more years of experience.”
THE MILESTONE OF THE INDUSTRIAL TORRELAVEGA
“I am aware of each and every one of the important projects for the city, and of the not so important ones, but also of the problems of the neighbors. I think that this is a value that the mayor of a city should have, and I can show that I have it”, emphasizes López Estrada.
Regarding the future, he details that “the most important” of the projects to be launched this legislature is the green hydrogen production plant on the Sniace grounds because, he predicts, “it will be a milestone for Torrelavega and a paradigm shift”. that would allow the city to return to being “the industrial and future city that we all want”.
“A small step below” this action situates López Estrada the project to rehabilitate the La Lechera complex as a cultural center, the construction of the Conservatory of Music and Dance, “or remove the thorn stuck in the burial, because this will be the legislature in the one that will begin this important work.”
MORE POPULATION, ANOTHER CHALLENGE
Another challenge that he assumes is that the city does not fall below 50,000 inhabitants, although he assures that “to a large extent” this “danger” has been managed to move away from the previous legislature, since between 2019 and 2023 barely a hundred inhabitants were lost when in the previous decade the rate was almost 800 a year.”
I believe that the risk has disappeared, but measures must be implemented in the medium and long term to maintain the trend, and that involves the construction of homes on new developable land” such as in El Calle, where 450 homes are planned for more of 1,000 people.
WHAT WILL THE TORRELAVEGA OF 2027 BE LIKE?
López Estrada hopes that at the end of this legislature, which has just begun, Torrelavega will be “a city with more enthusiasm”, with most of the projects completed, such as the hydrogen plant, the underground “ready” or the rehabilitation of La milkmaid
“This will be the legislature in which we must transmit more enthusiasm and in which the city reconnects with its town hall,” he assures, since he believes that “the fruits sown will be reaped” in the previous one where “we had to work against the elements ”.
REQUESTS TO THE NEW CANTABRIAN GOVERNMENT
He hopes that the political change in the Government of Cantabria will not influence this horizon of projects and that the future president, María José Sáenz de Buruaga, “also has the 51,000 Torrelaveguenses among her priorities.”
“We will have to open channels for dialogue, work on the projects and get the support of the regional government like the one we had during the last legislature. Probably the difficulties are more and the tools are different, but the objective has to be the same”, advises López Estrada.
Javier G. Paradelo.
The entry López Estrada: I would like Torrelavega to be more eager to look ahead was first published in EFE Noticias.