The transformation of Consell de Cent into a green axis took up practically half of the budget that in the previous municipal mandate was invested in the ‘Superilla Eixample’ project. About 26 million euros, of the more than 50 that all the works cost, ended up on this cross street in the center of the city. The rest served to pacify three sections of the so-called vertical plot, in Girona, Borrell and Rocafort.
These 26 million euros are not the initial budgeted figure, but, according to the municipal sources consulted, the real and final price of the work, the sum of all invoices paid. In practice and in the hypothesis that the court ruling ordering the return of Consell de Cent to its original urbanization were carried out to the most extreme of its consequences, that would be the amount lost, but that It does not really serve as a reference point for how much it could cost to recover the previous appearance of the street.with central circulation lanes for vehicles and sidewalks for pedestrians.
The reasons for this last question are several. The most obvious, to give a clear and transparent example, is that most of the current pavement of Consell de Cent is made up of granite slabs from a quarry in Extremadura. Up to nine types of pavements have been used to develop the street, most of them taken from that quarry in Quintana de la Serena. Conventional paving of a road for road traffic, if that were the execution of the sentence that was finally undertaken, would be much more economical.
Solutions?
The court ruling, as announced by Deputy Mayor Laia Bonet, will be appealed by the current government team of Jaume Collboni, so the end of this case is still uncertain. It is even true, according to the same sources consulted, what the reversal of the work carried out may or may not consist of. Would it be enough to allow cars through the central area so that they could circulate without interruption from end to end of Consell de Cent? Would that be enough for justice? The modifications to be made in this case would of course be minor, but they would undoubtedly alter the intended use of this street.
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The sentence, read literally, would also force the dismantling another important investment made, which affects the incorporation of a greater mass of urban green. In some cases, such as in the Plaza de Enric Granados, this can go partially unnoticed. The plant beds that occupy the central area of the intersection of the two streets have been installed but not before doing a deep treatment of the underground lands. In fact, all these flowerbeds are interconnected by the subsoil to improve water use.
Something more or less similar happens with the flower beds placed on the mountain side of most of Consell de Cent, which occupy part of what was formerly a road. They have been equipped in some cases with systems of drop by drop irrigation and, in practice, they are prepared in case one of the oldest trees on that road dies in the medium term. It will not be replaced by a new specimen in the same tree pit that the deceased tree occupied, but the purpose would be to relocate the new species in the new flowerbeds, so that when it grew it would provide more well-distributed shade. Although Barcelona usually boasts of having more tree-lined streets than any other European city, in truth most of them are uncomfortably planted, with their canopies smashed against the facades. In Consell de Cent, unless sentenced, it was intended to resolve this error over time.