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🇪🇸 Spain /Economy & Trade

ERC accuses Mataró government of letting El Corte Inglés project die

From La Vanguardia · () Spanish

Translated from Spanish and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

News Named sources Approved/passed
  • Esquerra Republicana de Mataró supported an agreement to buy back the Can Fàbregas and de Caralt site from El Corte Inglés, but criticized the municipal government’s handling of the failed project.
  • ERC says the deal involves forgone financial commitments, including more than €2.3 million for urbanization, €2.86 million in asset contributions, a six-storey municipal car park and about €6 million in foregone lease income.
  • The party says the city’s real cost extends beyond the buyback and includes two decades of spending by the municipality and PUMSA.

Esquerra Republicana de Mataró has backed the city’s agreement to recover the Can Fàbregas and de Caralt site from El Corte Inglés, but its support came with a sharp political accusation: the municipal government let the project die.

ERC voted in favor of the agreement and authorized the mayor to complete the purchase, saying it acted “out of responsibility to the city.” The vote, however, did not amount to an endorsement of the government’s management. The party argues that the buyback is the result of two decades of urban policy that mobilized public assets, reshaped much of central Mataró and generated million-euro costs without delivering the promised commercial project.

out of responsibility to the city

· Esquerra Republicana de MataróERC’s explanation for supporting the agreement to buy back the site.

The republicans focus particular criticism on the period after El Corte Inglés abandoned its plans. They say the city then held a strategic site with planning rules already adapted to the project, but the municipal government failed, or chose not, to find another operator that could have provided a way forward.

Any alternative would have been better than letting the project die through inaction

· Esquerra Republicana de MataróThe party’s criticism of the municipal government’s handling of the abandoned project.

ERC says that inaction has directly increased the bill now facing the city. “Any alternative would have been better than letting the project die through inaction,” the party says, arguing that the current cost “would never have been so high if the government had carried out its responsibility to mediate and negotiate.”

The party also says the buyback price does not capture the full cost. ERC points to more than €2.3 million in urbanization obligations and €2.86 million in asset contributions that El Corte Inglés had assumed. It also cites the loss of a planned six-storey municipal car park, which it values at at least €10 million, and an annual €120,000 payment over 50 years, or roughly €6 million in revenue the city would no longer receive. ERC is demanding a full accounting of what Mataró and PUMSA have spent over the two-decade operation.

would never have been so high if the government had carried out its responsibility to mediate and negotiate

· Esquerra Republicana de MataróERC’s claim that government inaction increased the city’s eventual cost.
About this summary

Originally published by La Vanguardia in Spanish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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