The Montcada i Reixac City Council –PSC, Vivim and PP– has said enough to the proliferation of shanties in Pla del Besòs. At 7 a.m. yesterday, the excavators began to remove and dismantle fifteen occupied huts and orchards in the poplar area known as Sant Pere de Reixac. In this way, the City Council wanted to sound a warning to make it clear that it will put a stop to the expansion of the settlement near the Besòs riverbed, where it is estimated that there are more than 200 plots occupied by orchards and illegal constructions.
According to a study carried out by the Consorci del Besòs, around 160 people live poorly in this area. In January 2022, unsanitary conditions claimed the life of a couple aged 40 and 42, who died after their cabin caught fire. The mayor of Montcada i Reixac, Bartolo Egea (PSC), visited the area yesterday: “In this poplar grove, which is protected, a year ago there was nothing; In a few months, around twenty plots have emerged,” he lamented. The president of the Territorial Area, Andreu Iruela, detailed the municipal objectives. “This is the first action of many others that we plan to do within our competencies. “We won’t be done until this is clean.” But eradicating shantytowns in Pla del Besòs is not a simple nor exclusively municipal task, since the Government committed two years ago to an action plan to eradicate it. Iruela insisted that “the Generalitat has to assume its powers and act once and for all.”
Yesterday’s operation was carried out with the support of the ADF La Serralada 301, under the supervision of the local police and with the collaboration of the Mossos. Municipal sources detailed that all the accumulated debris will be moved to the site that the Tersa company, owned by the AMB, has in the La Ferreria industrial estate and, once there, the selection of materials will be made to take them to the deixalleria. An inspection of the land is also planned to manually collect any remains and dirt that remain.
According to Iruela, the City Council “has been waiting for three months for the roadmap from the technical commission”, created last November and in which all the administrations involved participate. To carry out the intervention, the City Council had authorization from the ownership of the land.
