Infrastructure will have a prominent presence in the new mandate of the Barcelona City Council. The mayor, Jaume Collboni, recovered in his first week at the head of the municipal government the figure of chief engineer, which falls to the former dean of the College of Road Engineering, Oriol Altisench. It is now taking a step further with the creation of an infrastructure advisory council, a consultative body of experts that will advise the City Council on the complex decisions that must be made in a matter on which many dare to have an opinion.
The body will be made up of experts with a recognized professional prestige, and its presidency will fall to a big name: Santi Vila, ex-Councillor for Territory with CiU and current president of the Cercle d’Infraestructures de Catalunya. The name has been quite a surprise in the political sphere, due to its convergent past and the moves it made at the time to lead a candidacy for the mayor of the Catalan capital. In the field in which the organization is registered, on the other hand, they are more used to seeing it, since Vila presides over one of the forums where some of the main meetings of the sector are held. His predecessor in this entity, Pere Macías, was precisely one of the surprise signings of Ada Colau’s first term, in which he hired the former convergent councilor to lead the work on the tram union.
In this case there is no contract in the middle, it is a purely consultative body, without financial remuneration. The names of the members will be announced in September, but Vila makes it clear that he is committed to “a plural committee of experts that can work independently”. In the same sense, Collboni points out that “the debate on infrastructures needs a rigorous, serious, calm and calm basis to make the best decisions”. Altisench will be in charge of coordinating the meetings of the plenary committee, in which all members will be present, and the permanent committee, with a smaller group that will meet every two months at least. In addition, depending on the topics, specific working groups will be convened.
The creation of the advisory council was one of the promises made by Collboni during the electoral campaign and the intention after its creation is to accompany the political initiatives with the corresponding technical support. They will have to develop content that will help the Barcelona City Council to have its own voice and with argumentative solidity in all the issues regarding infrastructures that directly affect the municipal term of the Catalan capital, or that go further and have influence in one way or another.
The expansion of El Prat airport will be precisely one of the topics on which a pronouncement and further debate is expected within the advisory council. It won’t be the only challenge. The limitation of cruise ships in the port of Barcelona or the fulfillment of the Rodalies plan as a fundamental part of metropolitan mobility will be some of the other folders that will be debated in the committee, which in its founding document focuses on transport infrastructures, both railways such as ports and airports, as well as in energy and telecommunications and data infrastructures.
