Torrejón de Ardoz is once again a great industrial city

Its PP mayor, Ignacio Vázquez, wants it to recover the splendor of the 70s. The Open Sky shopping and leisure complex and the previously paralyzed PI Los Almendros attest to this.

There are those who, when hearing Torrejón de Ardoz, think of the American air base that was installed there in 1955. But, this municipality to the west of Madrid, in addition to hosting the base until 1992, was one of the main industrial cities in the region in the decade of the 70s. And today, it is about to recover that category: “We came to the mayor’s office with the aim of making Torrejón an industrial city again. When we came to the Government, the companies left Torrejón, now new ones are coming”. These are the words of Ignacio Vázquez, who took office on July 8, 2015, replacing Pedro Rollán, who left the mayor’s office after winning two consecutive municipal elections to occupy the Ministry of Transport, Infrastructure and Housing, and managed to finish with successive socialist governments.

From the balance of his management -which he carries out with constant contact with the residents “because it is the only way of knowing how to face the real difficulties of the city”- he can boast that today Torrejón has a new Soto del Henares train station -Hospital and a new access to the city’s main station is also being built to facilitate its use by the residents of the South zone. The first phase of the city’s Cycling Ring has also been built. Another issue that Vázquez highlights is that it governs “the second safest municipality in the Community of Madrid, having reduced its crime rate by 42.5 percent since 2008. And all this while maintaining the 5 percent drop in municipal taxes “.

two projects

But if there are two essential projects in the city, these are the start-up of the Los Almendros Industrial Estate and the Open Sky Madrid, the future large shopping and leisure complex in Madrid, with a surface area of ​​100,000 square metres, by the French multinational Phalsbourg. , which is scheduled to open at Christmas 2018.

Regarding the first, “it has been possible to unblock the start-up of this large industrial estate of 900,000 square meters, located in front of the current Las Monjas Industrial Estate and whose construction had been paralyzed since the stage of the previous PSOE and IU governments that curiously , like the rest of the opposition, have not supported its implementation, committing serious irresponsibility”. This new industrial estate, which will house companies that will add to the 1,208 registered in Torrejón, and the commercial complex will generate thousands of jobs. Something important for a city with an unemployment rate of 10.32 percent. “This figure is still high, although the improvement in recent months has been excellent. Thus, last April job creation recorded the best data in its entire history in a month of April with 445 fewer unemployed people. Unemployment has dropped by 1,806 people in one year, despite the fact that the active population of the municipality has grown again by 900 people, which shows that it is a young and dynamic city.In addition, the number of unemployed in Torrejón drops below the psychological figure of 10,000 standing at 9,671 unemployed people.Proof of the importance of this figure is that while in April 2009 207 jobs were destroyed or 51 in 2012, in April 2017 445 jobs were created.All this after an excellent year for employment in which unemployment has been reduced by 1,806 people”.

Vázquez, aware that companies are the ones that create jobs, has promoted the arrival of other new large companies in the city. Specifically, they are the Specialized Logistics Platform for Refrigerated and Frozen Food of the multinational Carrefour for Spain, the Swedish textile multinational H&M and the French transport multinational STEF Iberia, the Serviform Outsourcing Services-Call Center company, Iberespacio, a leading company in the aeronautical sector, the logistics platform Montepino Casablanca and the Spanish food company Calidad Pascual. “Once these eight large companies are up and running, thousands of people will work in them,” says Vázquez.

Not everything is industrial estates in this city of the Corredor del Henares that Vázquez defines as young and dynamic. “Without a doubt, Parque Europa has become an emblem of the transformation of the city in recent years and in terms of services, the exits and accesses to the city have been improved, new industrial land has been created, a new train station and we have tried to be very agile with the necessary bureaucracy to create or install new companies that create employment in the city”.

Debt

The economic crisis seriously affected all citizens, but in the administrations, the town halls were the ones that suffered the most because revenues plummeted, especially those from construction. Even so, “currently we continue to improve our city and reduce the municipal debt. The City Council will continue to pay the debt, which has decreased its amount by 31.5 million euros and almost 30 percentage points. Reducing the indebtedness of 178 million in 2013 to 146 in 2016. And falling from the maximum of 176.82 percent that was reached in 2013 to the current 148.52 percent, the payment of all of this being assumable, according to the economic route agreed and endorsed by the Ministry of Tax authorities”.

Vázquez shares the Plenary Hall with PSOE, Sí se puede, Ciudadanos and Ganar Torrejón. Although they have a large majority to govern the city “we are always open to supporting all opposition initiatives that are positive for Torrejón de Ardoz and its neighbors, who are our priority. In fact, since the beginning of the legislature we have shown our willingness to dialogue and reach consensus with the opposition, supporting several of its motions, making joint institutional declarations and ceding the presidency of information commissions to the four parties represented in the City Council to further improve transparency and control over the management of local government and of the townhall”. With whom he does not seem to have any quarrel is with the regional president, Cristina Cifuentes. “I think that she is doing an excellent job in the regional government and we work hand in hand with her and her government. We constantly ask her for improvements for Torrejón and many of them are already arriving. We are aware of how much we have advanced but we want more for our neighbors who I think deserve it. And it is that Vázquez’s project is very simple but ambitious: “Improve Torrejón, carrying out the greatest process of transformation and improvement in the history of the city,” he concludes.