Santander (EFE) “another position at a national and international level”, he assures.
“We are going to work hard and very quickly, we are going to look at the city in the long term. Everything that is underway is going to go much faster”, he affirmed in an interview with EFE on his first day of work after the constitution of the City Council, an “any Monday, because the City Council has not stopped having activity”, he points out.
She has met with the spokespersons of the groups to give them an official welcome by sharing a coffee, which she herself has made, she has sat down with the councilors of her group and has begun to work with the heads of service to “launch the projects as soon as possible ”.
As he affirms, the road map for the next four “is clear”, with novelties in many areas because it is necessary to “reinvent himself” but without surprises, beyond the projects that the PP has presented in the electoral campaign.
For many of them, such as the recovery of the breakwaters on the Magdalena beach, the railway rearrangement or the integration of the seafront, it will require “a lot of dialogue” with the Government of Spain that leaves the polls on July 23 and with that of Cantabria, which will be chaired by the also popular María José Sáenz de Buruaga.
“I am not going to stop being mayor because my political party is in government,” says Igual, who will go to Peña Herbosa “with the same demands, with the same outstretched hands” as in this past legislature, although she hopes that the meetings They are not annual but “more periodic”. “In respect and attention we already have a change, in the more continuous dialogue”, she points out.
high and low season
The mayoress stressed that Santander “is not going to be a city where there is a high and low season like now” although the service sector will continue to have a lot of weight. “We will have a city with many visitors throughout the year,” she says, after recalling that there are more and more licenses to create new establishments.
But also, he points out, Santander is going to have more industrial land with the expansion of the Science and Technology Park and it is going to “revitalize” its industrial estates, which are many and it has to “value” them.
New jobs related to culture will also be generated with the new museums that will open their doors in the coming years, such as the Mupac, the associated center of the Reina Sofía or the one that will house the Banco Santander art collection. And the Cantabrian capital will be a “greener, more habitable, better to live, work, come to rest and consume culture and gastronomy” city.
Among the projects that are on the mayoress’s table is covering the emblematic Plaza Porticada so that it can host events every day of the year, even when it rains, and turning it “into a revitalizing center” for the city center.
There is already an architectural solution, which is committed to an exempt roof, and the necessary urban modification is being prepared to launch a project that hopes to make this legislature a reality.
door always open
The first meeting of the mayoress this Monday at 8:15 a.m. was with the opposition spokespersons (PSOE, Vox, PRC and IU-Podemos), to whom she has informed that the door of her office “is going to be always open”.
“We are going to work together,” says Igual, who defends that with the absolute majority of 14 councilors obtained by the PP on March 28, it will not do “nothing unusual” or “by necessity.” “We are going to continue working the same way and raising our hands at any opportunity”, he points out.
Regarding this majority, he reiterates that he “does not want” it to “separate” the government from the opposition and believes that it serves to “expedite the city council.” “But we do not forget that the policy is for four years,” he qualifies.
In this sense, he says that if the “ideas and occurrences” that have been presented during the electoral campaign “mature” becoming “good projects” for the city, “they will be well received.”
Regarding the disappearance of his government partner for the last four years, Ciudadanos (Cs), acknowledges that “I couldn’t say how innovative they have been” in the areas they have governed and that the PP will now assume.
“What I do know is that the PP needs to regain regular and direct contact with the cultural, innovation or sports sector,” says the mayoress, who highlights that they will “analyze” the projects that Cs has left halfway, such as the model of city to see if they continue. “There aren’t that many,” she points out.
Regarding the management audit, another of the initiatives promoted by Cs, confirms that it will continue because it was already in the PP program. “What we are going to do is analyze what kind of service the council offers and where it fits in”, he explains.
By Pablo Ayerbe and Lola Camús