Sant Cugat del Vallès, in the Barcelona area, has spent the last three years focused on financial stability and long-term planning, according to Jordi Puigneró, the town council’s number two for Junts per Catalunya. Speaking on Ràdio Sant Cugat’s political programme, he said the administration has been dealing with an inherited situation and is doing “reasonably well”.
Puigneró said the first priority was to redirect the economic situation, because “without healthy finances it is very difficult to make policy”. He said the council has approved a budget every year, which he described as unusual for many administrations, and argued that this mandate has been more about management and preparing major projects than delivering them. For more local coverage, see our news page.
He said he hopes residents will re-elect the current administration so the planned projects, which he described as essential for the next 10 to 15 years, can go ahead. In his words, the mandate has been about “tidying up and taking care of the city”.
Housing remains one of the main pressures in Sant Cugat, according to the Sociological Observatory. Puigneró said local councils have limited power to solve the problem and argued that stronger action is needed from higher levels of government, possibly even at European level. He said demand to live in Sant Cugat is high, while the number of homes is limited.
He also set out three major challenges for the municipality. The first is mobility, because the Ferrocarrils and Renfe rail lines divide the town. Puigneró said the long-term goal should be to bury the tracks through the municipality, as has already happened in Terrassa, Sabadell and Rubí. The second is sport, with facilities needing to adapt to the town’s level of activity, including the new training pavilion at La Guinardera. The third is public services, as he said Sant Cugat, the twelfth largest city in Catalonia, still lacks a public reference hospital and physical courthouses.
Puigneró also addressed the closure of the DNI police station, which he blamed on the Spanish State, the government delegation and the Socialist Party. He said the council was informed on 15 July that the station would close on 1 September, and that he and the mayor spent August looking for alternative premises. He said the council cannot pay for a service that is not its responsibility, although he suggested a future courthouse building could include a DNI office.
On the municipal register, Puigneró said the current government has removed people who should not have been listed and stopped fraudulent registration attempts. He said the previous CUP-led administration left the register with more than 4,000 people who should not have been on it, and argued that an inaccurate register makes it impossible to plan schools and services properly. He also said Sant Cugat has no responsibility in the possible annexation of Bellaterra, which was started by residents under a Catalan Parliament law on municipal boundary changes. He expects a response from the Generalitat this year.