The delegate of the Government of Spain in Cantabria, Pedro Casares, said that the Government is working on the specifications of a new study of the project of the Santander-Bilbao train in three sections.
“He has not said that the project is not going to be done, nor that we rule out doing it in tranches but that a sheet of study is being done in tranches to make it possible, so that a millionaire investment of these characteristics can be done,” he said.
In this regard, the government delegate has stressed that it will include an improvement in the location of the Castro Urdiales station glued to the urban center, and therefore with better accessibility.
“We want to express our commitment to the Informative study of the Cantabrian-Mediterranean Corridor in its section: Madrid-Santander, which aims to analyze the different options to establish a new railway connection between Bilbao and Santander with competitive travel times in front of the road, for mixed passenger and freight traffic”, he added.
The first phase of the study, he said, already completed, “consisted in the approach of different alternatives and the study of these in terms of demand, socioeconomic analysis and environmental impact, to allow previous decision-making.”
From this phase “two alternatives were selected with costs between 2,450 and 2,950 million euros”. “In a second phase, the alternatives selected in the first phase have been analyzed in greater detail and developed at scale. In view of the results of this more detailed analysis of the alternatives, which is still in draft mode, what we are doing is a new feasibility study by separate sections, seeking greater profitability.”
“The president of Cantabria herself is acknowledging that the government is complying with Cantabria,” she said, so “it seems to me that without talking to the government, making assessments as the president of Cantabria has done does not seem to me to be acceptable.”
In this regard, Casares reminded the president of Cantabria, María José Sáenz de Buruaga, that “here it does not rain on wet, as it says, nor is there any breach of the Government of Spain”.
“A president who forgets that the government of Pedro Sánchez is the only one committed to the demands of Cantabria,” he said. “Every time the Government of Cantabria says so, I will deny it,” said the government delegate.
For Casares, in addition, “we are complying with all the investments of Cantabria and probably the best example is the payment of the debt of the Valdecilla Hospital”.
“And why do I tell you this? Because the Valdecilla Hospital was inaugurated in 2015 with Mariano Rajoy, Íñigo de la Serna, Ignacio Diego, being Minister of Health, María José Sáenz de Buruaga, and there we saw the non-compliances of the PP Government that breached the payments of the annuities of the hospital and the Government of Cantabria had to resort to the courts and we won it in the courts to pay the debt of the Valdecilla Hospital,” he recalled.
In this regard, Casares stressed that “it was the Government of Pedro Sánchez that paid the annuities and paid off the historical debt of Valdecilla”.
“We have done so with all the infrastructures of Cantabria. Today all the infrastructure projects that were requested are in progress or are a reality: the MUPAC, the logistics center of La Pasiega, the gorge of La Hermida, the railway reorganization or the basement in Santander and in Torrelavega, the Sierrapando-Barreda link on the A-67, the modernization of the railway network of Proxias or the third lane from Santander to Polanco”, he said.
Finally, Pedro Casares stressed that “all these projects are under way, all of them were promised by the PP and not done, they are being done by the current government of Spain with data, with figures, with facts, with works”.