What will happen to all the ground freed up in Lorca after the AVE train line is buried?

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There are plans to use the extra space created in Lorca by the burial of the train lines to make open green spaces

What will happen to all the ground freed up in Lorca after the AVE train line is buried?

The City Council of Lorca has announced some ideas of what to do with all the new land that will be created in the municipality after the train tracks of the high-speed AVE railway are eventually buried underground.

Their main plan is to increase the number of green areas and open spaces in the city, transforming the reclaimed land into a ‘green lung’ with lots of trees that can also be used by local people.

And ADIF, the Spanish state-owned railway infrastructure management company, has also come on board with the idea, floating the possibility of changing “the orientation of the line’s vents as it passes through Lorca, so that they do not interrupt the planned green corridor, thus favouring the permeability of the area”.

In any case, the future use of the space will be put to a public consultation.

“We are going to launch an ideas competition to see possible uses of the urban fabric in the space freed up on the surface after the burying of the AVE as it passes through Lorca,” said Lorca Mayor, Fulgencio Gil this Monday, February 19.

The Mayor himself specified that all the options on the table would have one thing in common: “The maximum intention of preserving green areas and open spaces with vegetation that favour decongestion, leisure, sports and outdoor walks.”

The arrival of the underground AVE in Lorca will involve the transfer of the train station to the new Sutullena building, just a couple of miles from the old Estación San Diego, but the City Council has also not given up on the idea of the AVE arriving at both stations.

“We continue to demand the possibility of the high-speed service reaching the San Diego station, regardless of whether the urban integration and underground works of the AVE continue to be carried out, since in this way we would reinforce our position as the subregional capital and head of the Guadalentín, Vélez and Almanzora regions,” said Mayor Gil. “It is an issue that is still on the table, but the arrival of high speed has to be separated from urban integration works. With this, Lorca would bring forward the arrival of the AVE to the city by more than two years.”

At the same time, another of the resolutions recently floated was that the building housing the old San Diego commuter station be transferred to the hands of the City Council, so that it can be converted into “a point of service to the citizen”, for example, by hosting a new ‘Youth Space’, among other possible use options.

Some people who lived on the land where trainline works are being carried out were paid to move out by the Council, who expropriate the land. These people’s petitions to cushion the effects of that expropriation is also being heard by the Council “by proceeding to assess different possibilities of land reserve for these homes… so that they are affected as little as possible, being able to build, for example.”