The Madrid City Council has opened up to reducing the closures of the main parks in the capital, such as El Retiro, due to episodes of heat waves. After listening to the constant complaints from neighbors about the impossibility of taking refuge from the high temperatures under the shade of their trees, the council is going to modify its action protocols to, among other things, take as a reference the weather of the last hour before the moment of the opening and evaluate the situation of each enclosure individually.
To this end, the current criteria of the “Protocol for action in the forecast of exceptionally adverse weather situations and management of incidents caused by trees” will be modified, which takes as a reference the weather forecast of the last 24 hours that Aemet transfers daily to the Consistory. from Madrid.
This is one of the four measures that the Madrid City Council Urban Planning, Environment and Mobility delegate, Borja Carabante, has transferred to the municipal opposition groups, in a meeting held this Wednesday afternoon at the Palacio de Cibeles to address the modification of the protocol that requires the closure of the large parks in Madrid in situations of extreme heat.
“We are going to avoid many park closures. Many times, the predictions 24 hours in advance are not fulfilled. In those cases we also close because the protocol also requires it. The update will allow many times it would have been closed and now it is not closure as a result of the forecast not being fulfilled”, detailed Carabante.
The government team is confident that this readjustment in the timing of Aemet’s weather forecasts may be ready for the month of August.
In addition to adjusting the times based on “weather certainties” closer to the opening time of the parks, Carabante has reported that the City Council will draw up individualized protocols for each of the Madrid parks subject to the current regulation.
These are, in addition to El Retiro, El Capricho, Jardines de Sabatini, the Rosaleda del Parque del Oeste, Juan Carlos I, Juan Pablo II, Quinta de Fuente del Berro, Quinta de los Molinos and Quinta Torre Arias.
The Environment area has also agreed to open the entrances to the El Retiro municipal library and Florida Park within half an hour of reopening the parks after decreeing their closure, instead of the two hours required by the current regulation, and the study, by a company outside the Consistory, of the trees of the Retiro “to see if it is possible to zone the park and not close it in its entirety” at times of red alert.
In this last regard, the delegate has stated that “reasonable time” should be given to be able to write the report on the tree status of El Retiro, therefore, “with all security”, “it will not be throughout this summer”.
Carabante has ensured that the Madrid City Council will not modify the wind and temperature thresholds that determine the red alert in Madrid parks -which implies the total closure of the parks- while these levels “do not have a political nature”, but ” technical”. “If the technicians say that they cannot guarantee the safety of the visitors, it is beyond any debate”, he has settled on the matter.
