Justice orders the Ciutadella City Council to refill the Born with cars

CiutadellaJudicial blow to Ciutadella. The Contentious-Administrative Chamber of the Superior Court of Justice has annulled the political decision to clear cars from Plaça del Born, which the City Council carried out on July 1st, just after the motion of no confidence that returned the government to the left was consummated. In a forceful ruling, the court presided over by Judge Fernando Socias contradicts the first-instance decision and orders the City Council to restore the square to its previous state.

The ruling, which partially upholds the appeal filed by the approximately twenty businessmen and merchants who opposed the removal of cars and the conversion of the square solely for pedestrians from the outset, is clear in considering that the City Council made this decision without any "enabling title" to support it.

The transformation of Plaça del Born into a pedestrian space without the car parking it had always accommodated had been an unfulfilled promise for decades by all political groups, including the Popular Party, which resisted carrying it out in the first year of its mandate governing the municipality, arguing that it did not have time to provide the necessary dissuasive parking.

However, the motion of no confidence by the left, which in July 2024 removed the PP from the mayor's office, had a clear commitment: to clear cars from El Born and reclaim the square for the citizens. An agreement, however, that the government formed by the PSOE, PSM-Més per Menorca, and Ciutadella Endavant took another year to execute. Taking advantage of the traffic changes in the city for the Sant Joan festivities, they changed signs and redistributed traffic to no longer allow cars to reach the square, with the exception of residents and transporters.

The poor start to the season, driven by high prices for complementary services and a reduction in visitor arrivals in July, mobilized the business owners of the establishments closest to the square, allied with the public transport concession company, Autocars Torres, which had to move the bus stop it traditionally had in the neighboring Plaça dels Pins.

Both parties largely blamed the traffic changes introduced by the City Council and, although at first, in November, the ruling of the Court of First Instance of Palma was not favorable to their interests, the subsequent appeal now resolved by the Contentious Chamber of the TSJB has given an unexpected turn to the situation.

The court states that not even the Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (PMUS) processed by the City Council to validate these changes has been definitively approved. In its defense, the City Council "has not indicated any resolutions or administrative files that would support its action", which is why it agrees to accept the precautionary measure requested by the employers. Furthermore, the Court does not take the City Council's opinion into consideration, nor does it consider that the general interest is affected or that the interest of the merchants is prioritized, since "road traffic has been allowed for years in Plaça del Born".

On the contrary, the magistrates do reject the business community's claim to return the bus stop to the center, as the transfer outside Plaça dels Pins was carried out in accordance with an administrative file and the authorization of the Consell de Menorca.

The municipal government team has not yet reacted to the ruling and will not appear publicly until tomorrow to explain whether it intends to comply with the judicial order or, on the contrary, to file an appeal for cassation before the Supreme Court.

The PP demands political responsibility

The Popular Party in opposition, on the other hand, has not hesitated to demand political responsibility for the "chaos" caused by this resolution. "Justice confirms what merchants, residents, and the Popular Party itself had been reporting since day one," stated the spokesperson and president of the PP, Juana Mari Pons, for whom it is clear that "the Born could not be transformed hastily, without a project or consensus, and only for political interest.

"This is the clearest case of chaos and improvisation with which the tripartite government governs," says Pons, who accuses the left of "having bypassed all procedures and disregarded the warnings of residents, businessmen, and the opposition." All in all, she highlights, it has led to "an absolutely absurd situation: spending public money on an improvised action that Justice now forces to be reversed.

In these 10 and a half months of the Born without cars, the City Council has promoted various activities to fill it with content while awaiting the reform of the historic square, but has been unable to move forward with the agreement with the College of Architects to first hold an ideas competition. The ball is now in their court.