The image is repeated daily. Just at 2:30 p.m., when the sun is hottest, the thousands of users who every day decide to take refuge from the sun in one of Madrid’s municipal swimming pools have to parade along the sidewalks in search of a new refuge until the pools are reopened. doors at 4:30 p.m.
Some do it at a brisk pace, others completely wet after having taken a last preventive dip that attenuates the exit from the enclosure. And the luckiest at full speed in search of the air conditioning of the car in which a relative or friend has come looking for them. But no one can stay in the pools since the City Council maintains the split day of the service that was established in the middle of the pandemic.
The protests of last year have been added to those of this 2023. And all together they have reached the ears of the mayor, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, who this Tuesday has shown himself willing to evaluate a situation to decide if the traditional full day from 10:00 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. that now suspends every noon for two hours.
“This is a question that comes from the Covid where, in order to adopt the necessary hygiene and cleaning measures so as not to increase the risks, this split shift was obviously adopted,” argued José Luis Martínez-Almeida. The councilor has also abounded that with the split schedule, incidents are avoided and the price to pay is reduced for people who do not want to be there all day.
“We do not close the door on people being able to go a full day. We will take the results and the user satisfaction rate this year into account because in politics it is important to know how to listen. If users have demands, we will listen to them and We will make decisions for next season”, he indicated.
The situation of the schedules has been denounced by the councilors of the PSOE-M and Más Madrid Daniel Viondi and Eduardo Rubiño, respectively, who have described as “illogical” that citizens cannot spend the whole day in the pool, especially in episodes of extreme heat like this week.
“When the heat is hottest, when we are close to temperatures of 40 degrees, the people of Madrid have to leave the pool for more than an hour and then return after an hour. It is something illogical,” Viondi first criticized in a audio sent to the press, in which he has asked to return to the “usual” schedule.
Rubiño, for his part, has branded as “nonsense” that the split shift is still in force and, like the Socialist, has demanded that the municipal swimming pools open continuously because “you have to think that many families cannot go on vacation, that their vacations are the municipal swimming pool”.
