It's not something new. The examination center of the General Directorate of Traffic (DGT) of Valencia has been in El Saler for decades, a hamlet in the Natural Park of l'Albufera. Since then, in front of the Mediterranean forest of The Devesa and very close to the dunes, dozens of private vehicles and even large trucks come almost daily to do the theoretical and practical test to drive.
It is one of the loopholes of the time in which El Saler was projected as an urbanized area and where it was proposed to locate the airport of Valencia or the labor university (today CIPFP of Cheste), and where today you can still see several towers of inhabited buildings, an abandoned luxury hotel (the Sidi Saler) and even a National Parador with a golf course in operation.
The neighborhood denounces "environmental and coexistence problems"
The neighborhood is fed up with the inconvenience caused by the DGT examination center in El Saler, as the president of the AVV, Pere Pau, explains: "It causes environmental problems and coexistence. They do there the theoretical exams, where most travel in a private vehicle despite having a stop of the EMT, and the practical ones of motorcycle, car and even industrial trailers".
"El Saler is four streets that collapse with the cars of the driving schools. A lot of cars pass through every day within what is a Natural Park, "he warns.
Cars in the car park next to the DGT examination centre in the Albufera de València natural park
Therefore, they require the transfer of the dgt facilities. A petition that, in the form of a Proposition not a Law, was already approved by the Interior Commission in the Congress of Deputies in 2016.
In it, the Government was urged to negotiate with the Generalitat Valenciana and the City Council of Valencia to send the center "outside the surroundings of the Natural Park of l'Albufera" and "within the municipality" of Valencia, "on land ceded to the aforementioned DGT in conditions similar to the current ones".
Likewise, it was agreed that "the competent administrations would coordinate for a total regeneration of the space currently occupied by these facilities".
Six years later, the Saler Neighborhood Association denounces that "neither the Generalitat nor the City Council of Valencia have moved a finger to move the DGT out of the Natural Park".
Cars in the car park next to the DGT examination centre in the Albufera de València natural park
For this reason, they have already filed a complaint with the Catalan Ombudsman and, in case they continue to ignore them, they will ask for "the intervention of the Prosecutor's Office".
"We are waiting for the reaction of the authorities. If they have laziness, they still have to be pushed by going to the Prosecutor's Office," says Pau.
Whose competition is it?
Everything indicates that the non-legislative proposal approved in Congress has been forgotten in the drawer. No one knows anything. From the Devesa-Albufera Service and the Urban Projects Service of the City of Valencia they pointed out, in a response to the neighborhood entity of October 2019, that "it is not a matter of their competence" and that, in addition, "no communication" had been received from the DGT indicating "their intention to stop using the facilities".
Sources of the Ministry of Territorial Policy, Public Works and Mobility, consulted by this newspaper, have also indicated that they have no record of the request for the transfer of the DGT center in the Natural Park of l'Albufera.
Take advantage of the facilities to make public endowments
The president of the Saler Neighborhood Association, Pere Pau, argues that his request is not based "only on the defense of the territory and the Natural Park", but also demand that the facilities be used to provide the hamlet with public services that they lack.
"In the social nucleus of El Saler we do not have any adequate public facility because there is no land. Everything is ultra-protected because it is a Natural Park, and it seems very good to us, so that the only free public space that would remain would be the center of the DGT. It is the only place capable of hosting a social or sports center near the citizens," he says.
Saler Beach
At the moment, the neighborhood continues to urge the Department of Municipal Heritage of the City of Valencia to move the exam center out of l'Albufera "to avoid the daily concentration of hundreds of cars in the Natural Park."
Otherwise, they assure that they will file a complaint with the Prosecutor's Office. "Nor do we rule out neighborhood mobilizations," they warn.
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