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The Spanish Government has announced that the environmental evaluation report for the widening of the N-332 as it passes through Torrevieja has been approved, allowing the project to move forward.
Bárbara Soler explained that the report assesses potential impacts of the project on human health, the atmosphere, soil, biodiversity, flora and fauna, cultural heritage, landscape, and more. “This process is mandatory, and now that it has been completed, we can proceed with the project, which involves fitting the road expansion into the limited available space.”
Additionally, the PSOE leader emphasised that these procedures are technically complex and can take time. For this reason, the project has been developed alongside the environmental evaluation “to accelerate the expansion as much as possible.”
The Socialist Party of Torrevieja launched its campaign emphasising that the expansion of the N-332 was an absolute priority. Soler has repeatedly stated that she has maintained communication with the Ministry of Transport since the beginning of her term, expressing gratitude for their cooperation “despite our persistence.” She also confirmed that once the road project is completed and approved, the construction work will be put out to tender.
The Spanish Government is set to invest €55 million to expand 4.47 km of the remaining 7 km that have yet to be widened. “The remaining section will likely have environmental restrictions due to the area it passes through, but fortunately, it is the least congested,” Soler explained. She also stated that the expansion will happen “despite the PP, which is solely responsible for the road being squeezed between houses and businesses. And it will be carried out by a PSOE government.”
Soler also addressed why this is the only section of the road yet to be expanded, directly blaming the PP’s management in Torrevieja since the road’s construction in the 1980s. “The PP chose to ignore regulations to benefit developers and property owners instead of prioritising the general public. “Their focus has always been construction at any cost,” she stated.
According to the PSOE spokesperson, “At least 100 metres of land should have been left unoccupied from the edge of the roadway, but in Torrevieja, construction was allowed up to just 25 metres, despite repeated warnings from the Directorate-General for Roads. As a result, we are now forced to drive on a single-lane road with high traffic density and poor safety.”
Soler also took the opportunity to link this issue to statements made last year by several PP mayors from Vega Baja regarding the temporary toll exemption announced by the Ministry of Transport for the AP-7 highway around Alicante.
These officials argued that excluding the stretch between Los Montesinos and La Zenia was discriminatory against Vega Baja. However, the secretary-general of the Socialist Party in Torrevieja pointed out that the PP itself was responsible for making these and other roads toll-based in the first place.
She stated that the highway’s concession contract was awarded in 1998 for 50 years, “under Aznar’s government in Madrid and Zaplana’s in Valencia.” Other toll roads have since reached the end of their concessions and have become toll-free, but this particular stretch—one of the most expensive in Spain despite being only 13 km long—was built during the real estate boom and will remain under concession until 2048.
“The company even took legal action against socialist projects that aimed to create free roads, such as the expansion of the N-332 between Guardamar and Torrevieja and from Torrevieja to Pilar de la Horadada,” she added.
For all these reasons, Soler called it “ridiculous” that the PP “constantly demands that the Spanish Government expand the N-332 and make the highway toll-free when they are the ones responsible for these problems by prioritising private interests.”
Despite this, she concluded by stating, “While the PP continues to try to mislead members of the public, the PSOE will keep working for the public interest.”
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