The exclusion decision was made public through an order from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development, published on April 8 in the Official Gazette of the Junta de Andalucía (BOJA), as reported by the Chiclana City Council itself.
The Council had submitted applications for six rural roads located in the scattered settlements of Chiclana: La Cepa, Los Frailes, Hijuela de las Lagunetas, Hijuela de Patapalo, El Cuartillo, and Hijuela del Cerrillo Romero. These requests were part of a regional call for proposals aimed at repairing damage caused by adverse weather to infrastructures providing access to agricultural holdings.
The regional resolution rejected the Council's applications, arguing, among other reasons, that the proposed roads did not meet the impassability criterion, a fundamental requirement established in the aid plan's guidelines.
“"We included in the proposal those that technically were supposed to be eligible for this subsidy."
The first deputy mayor, Ana González, expressed her disagreement with the reasons stated in the resolution. She questioned the Junta's assertion that the roads are “perfectly passable for vehicles,” making these statements in the vicinity of Hijuela de las Lagunetas, one of the affected routes.
The regional plan's main objective is to repair rural roads and collective irrigation systems that suffered damage due to successive storms that hit Andalucía during the winter. The aid is aimed at municipalities and entities owning agricultural infrastructures that have sustained direct damage as a result of these meteorological phenomena.
The Town Council maintains that the requested roads show significant deterioration due to accumulated heavy rainfall, which, according to the local government, hinders access to farms and agricultural operations within the municipality.
Following this exclusion from the regional funding line, the municipal government team has announced its intention to include these same roads in other aid calls. Specifically, they plan to submit them for grants from the Spanish Government intended for the repair of infrastructures affected by storms.
