The City Council appeals against the ministry’s prior authorisation of the photovoltaic solar plant ‘FV Castalla’
- The acting mayor has sent this document to the Secretary of State for Energy of the Ministry for Ecological Transition
Castalla Town Council has lodged an appeal against the prior administrative authorisation of the photovoltaic solar plant ‘FV Castalla’. The current acting mayor, Antonio Bernabeu, has sent this document to the Secretary of State for Energy of the Ministry for Ecological Transition, with the aim of stopping the installation of this infrastructure in the municipality of the town.
Thus, the appeal was submitted on 5 June 2023. The document requests, firstly, to revoke and annul the resolution of 26 May 2023, signed by the Director General of Energy Policy and Mines, Manuel García Hernández, which granted the prior administrative authorisation for the photovoltaic solar plant ‘FV Castalla’ and its evacuation infrastructure, in charge of the project developer ‘Cobra Concesiones S.L.’.
Secondly, the Consistory has also asked for a precautionary suspension of this resolution, at least until the finalisation of the Specific Modification of the General Urban Development Plan (PGOU) of the city, which dates back to 2002. Thus, the Town Council has asked to wait for the completion of this procedure, on which it is currently working, before adopting a new resolution on the matter. The aim of this initiative is to determine the areas that can accommodate large installations for the use of renewable energies and to organise the structuring of undeveloped land in the city.
The Castalla Town Council has based its argumentation on eight points, which it develops over twenty pages, before setting out its demands. In them, it analyses the incompatibility of land use; the state of the processing of the PGOU; the conflicts between private and public interests; the legal, technical and financial economic capacity of the developer; local autonomy and land use planning; the landscape understood as a fundamental element to guarantee the quality of life of citizens; the notes of the guide of the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, which analyses the preparation of environmental impact studies of photovoltaic solar plant projects and the compatibility of the position of Castalla Town Council with the Agenda 2030.
