The Madrid Council is set to deal with it’s third court case relating to their handling of a planned car park that Real Madrid Estadio, a suibsidiary company owned by Real Madrid, are set to lease from the council.
Already the Court for Contentious Administration and the Madrid Supreme Court are dealing with complaints from two groups of ordinary citizens, the Association of People Damaged by the Bernabeu, and the Neighborhood Initiative Association in Defense of the Environment and Against the Tunnel in Paseo de la Habana-Padre Damian. Now they have decided to file two complaints to the European Union Court.
It relates to plans from the Madrid Council to build an underground car park with 2,000 spaces next to the Santiago Bernabeu. The council will spend the €11.7m to build the car park, and Real Madrid Estadio are the only company to have bid to run the project, which could make them up to €561.5m over the course of their 40-year lease.
Council Executive Jose Luis Martinez-Almeida has told the press that the process was carried out completely correctly, and respects the law scrupulously.
However the two neighbourhood associations, as per El Confidencial, claim that numerous infractions of urban planning law have been carried out. First and foremost, they allege that the only beneficiary of the tunnel to the car park (which will also include a tunnel straight into the Bernabeu’s current parking spaces under the stadium), are Real Madrid, not the public.
The argument put forward by the council was that 70% of the places are for residents, in a place where it is difficult to park. This has been strenuously denied by the two neighbourhood associations, who note that the construction will cut a five-lane road down to two, a road which is used to connect three schools serving 4,000 children with the main artery.
It will also remove 600 parking spaces available to residents, while only 547 of the underground car park will be available to residents and local workers – this is just 27% of spaces. Meanwhile they also allege that the projected pricing of the car park spaces and the profit margins clearly indicate Real Madrid as the beneficiary.
Meanwhile their second complaint relates to an infringement of urban planning law. The planning permission studies were carried out without the necessary environmental impact report, which states what the project would do to the environment.
Already Madrid is one of the cities with the poorest air quality in Europe, and this would only encourage traffic and cars to drive into the city centre rather than using active travel or public transport.
Real Madrid President Florentino Perez has close links to the Partido Popular, the party that Martinez-Almeida represents, and frequently sees members of the party appear in the directors box at the Bernabeu. Perez is also strongly suspected of being one of the major donors to the Partido Popular.
Perez also holds the position of the Head of the Activities of Construction and Services, which has been investigated on multiple occasions as part of corruption cases involving the Partido Popular, although the business itself has not been convicted of trading crimes.
