First setback for the Mayor of La Linea's plan to charge a toll for access to Gibraltar

First setback for the Mayor of La Linea's plan to charge a toll for access to Gibraltar
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By h.b. - Aug 11, 2010 - 1:13 PM
The Mayor has been denied permission to change the traffic flow to create space for the creation of toll booths

Mayor of La Linea - Alejandro Sánchez - EFE

The Partido Popular Mayor of La Linea, Alejandro Sánchez, has hit the first setback to his plan to charge cars 5 € to cross into Gibraltar.

As part of the plan he had resurrected an earlier application to the Ministry for Development to change the traffic flow to the border, so that tool booths could be constructed on municipal land. In the application he describes the traffic change as being a result of drainage and sewage works and lighting, and mentions ‘other future installations’, but the Ministry, via the General Director of Roads in Western Andalucía, Miguel Ángel Schmolling, has now denied the application and calls for ‘the immediate halting of the works and the re-establishment of the traffic flow’.

The Mayor’s plan to charge for access to Gibraltar, which has been estimated would generate 30 million € for the municipality, has been criticised by both the PSOE and IU parties, but the PP leader in Andalucía, Javier Arenas, has come out in support.

Arenas said that the Spanish Government has made many concessions to the British colony without dedicating ‘even a minute’ to the Campo de Gibraltar area. He and the party leader, Mariano Rajoy, have backed calls for La Linea to get special funding because of its frontier condition with Gibraltar, despite the fact that it was the PP’s Cristóbal Montoro who froze the original proposal.

Meanwhile the Gibraltar First Minister, Peter Caruna, has issued a statement criticising the ‘confused’ intentions of the La Linea Town Hall, considering they break European, and possibly Spanish law. The Gibraltar Government thinks the proposal is more to do with a battle between La Linea and Madrid, but has warned that if the toll is introduced Gibraltar ‘will take the measures it considers necessary’.

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