The mayor of Alhaurín de la Torre, Joaquín Villanova, attended a session of the 'Málaga Metrópolis Global' Forum of Mayors, organized by the Ciedes Foundation in collaboration with the Provincial Council of Málaga, the Junta de Andalucía, and the province's town councils. The event was held at the Palace of Fairs and Congresses of Málaga, as part of Greencities, Urban Intelligence & Smart Mobility.
During his speech, Villanova highlighted the need for a Metropolitan Housing and Land Plan to assess available land across municipalities and address housing needs from a supramunicipal perspective. "We need to promote a joint plan and understand the real land supply available to all municipalities," he stated.
The mayor called for collaboration between administrations and municipalities to tackle issues requiring coordinated responses, asserting that "the response must be metropolitan" and urging "constant work" towards concrete solutions. He noted the forum's growing ambition and the reality of Málaga's metropolitan dimension, warning that unchecked growth could lead to difficulties without adequate planning and infrastructure.
"We are facing pressing problems and must overcome them together to avoid collapse and dying of success," he affirmed, emphasizing that the forum's goal should be to "provide solutions as quickly as possible," not just "diagnoses."
Within the Forum, working commissions were established to analyze mobility, housing, water, and energy. Villanova stressed that these groups should have an "agile, useful, and results-oriented" structure. Regarding water management, he advocated for tertiary treatment, reducing infrastructure losses, standardizing tariffs, preventing aquifer over-exploitation, and improving water quality, deeming the Cerro Blanco dam "essential." He insisted that water resource management must be a joint, metropolitan effort.
Concerning mobility, he proposed the need for new public and collective transport infrastructure, joint mobility management, investments in interurban connections, and the creation of park-and-ride facilities. Previously, he participated in a panel discussion on mobility and territory with the mayors of Coín and Alhaurín el Grande.
Villanova conveyed the necessity of strengthening alternatives to private vehicles and improving collective transport connections, particularly the railway link for the municipalities of the Valle del Guadalhorce and the Cercanías line towards Alhaurín de la Torre, Alhaurín el Grande, and Coín. "85% of people travel by private vehicle, and we need to promote public transport more," he noted.
He stated that the metropolitanization of Málaga "cannot be built solely on strategic documents, but with concrete actions," summarizing that "the response to energy, water, and housing must be metropolitan."
Furthermore, he presented updates to the Town Council's Transparency and Open Government Portal, which have seen Alhaurín de la Torre climb from 12th to 3rd place provincially and from 50th to 10th in Andalusia in less than a month.
