By Adriana Lopez

Together Gibraltar held a press conference today to outline their policies on the environment, traffic, transport and infrastructure.  Craig Sacarello, candidate for Together Gibraltar, said: “In this era of post-truth politics we ask the electorate to open their eyes…Gibraltar has shameful environmental record”.

 “We have heavily congested roads, the highest number of cars per capita. We pump raw sewage into the sea. We have no real cycle paths, just Tippex on the ground. We build schools on top of petrol stations and put private car parks underneath them,” said Mr Sacarello. He also accused the GSLP-Liberal administration of not investing in electric car charging points, increasing quotas for fishing of endangered species, reclaiming huge amounts of land, and allowing construction that was “out of control.”

He continued: “It is time to address the needs of the wider community. The environment affects every second of our lives and we are running out of time. We don’t have another four years. In relation to the climate change, Together Gibraltar promised ‘true accountability’ by the Government on an independent commission for the environment. We’ll make reporting completely visible and transparent and impose tougher targets.”

“On renewable (energy), without a comprehensive plan we will only continue to work at snail’s place. We need to work out our best technologies and work with local environmental experts and university researchers to attract top siters to Gibraltar. Also energy experts to create an ecosystem to best channel our efforts,” added Mr Sacarello.

Together Gibraltar has promised to create a sewage plant in their first term of office if elected. A top priority for the party is also the conservation of Gibraltar’s marine life, especially endangered species. In addition, Mr Sacarello pledged to be ‘tough on plastic’ by reducing usage and wastage and improving recycling facilities.

On energy and shipping Mr Sacarello said: “We will ensure the power station is up and running and decommission the old generating station as soon as possible. We will introduce onshore and offshore power supply for bunkering and make sure that this is renewably sourced. The other parties are talking about onshore, we are also looking at offshore, which will significantly reduce the amount of plumes and black smoke you see from the ships.”

Together Gibraltar spoke about introducing vertical gardening and garden roofs to ‘flourish biodiversity’. As well as community programmes that will offer space and finance to ‘green up areas and tighten community ties’. 

A key area of focus for the party is clean air. Mr Sacarello explained: “We need to liaise with Spanish politicians and Spanish NGOs to mitigate the impact of transboundary air quality. The environment affects us all and doesn’t respect frontiers. We will introduce additional air monitoring and make sure the information is readily available. We will make air quality part of our discourse the same way people talk about the levanter.”

“We are the only party that can truly deliver on issues of the environment. Some people have an environmentalist in their party but there is a huge disconnect between one person and what they want to deliver, the reality of a party that suppresses whatever vision this person has,” argued Mr Sacarello.

Together Gibraltar highlighted that the environment is one of their core pillars and that I” ‘transcends all of their policy-making.” They also stated that in regards to sustainability “every decision had to be for the long term good of Gibraltar”.

Together Gibraltar candidate Neil Samtani said the party would be factoring the environment into their transport plan by introducing an integrated transport plan that combined parking, bus stops, cycle sharing and - in future - car sharing, as well as a bicycle highway that will extend across Gibraltar.

“Our capacity is finite. We need to increase mobility while reducing congestion. Transport is necessary for the quality of life and instrumental for economic growth. We need transport plan to meet the environmental challenges. For those who need to drive, access to electric vehicles will be easier than ever. We will grow charging infrastructure not just for private spaces but in public spaces and the estates. We will make electric vehicles cheap to buy and easy to use,” said Mr Samtani.

The party also outlined a plan for urban regeneration. Their goal is to ‘maintain what already exists’ and introducing a beautification programme, especially in the Upper Town.

“The introduction of the sustainable plan we will be able to reconsider what spaces are there and how the community will establish spaces that have been forgotten and left to decay. The beatification programme (of Upper Town) goes in conjunction with our sustainable development plan,” explained Mr Samtani.

In response to questions from the press on how they would manage to work with owners of private properties in the Upper Town, Together Gibraltar said their main objective was to ‘incentivise the maintenance of buildings’.

“We want to encourage communal and civic pride so residents (who are renting) maintain those properties that aren’t theirs,” concluded Mr Samtani.