In recent weeks, No-Tav activism has been mobilizing in Vicenza, where the High Speed Train project – in addition to having a strong impact on the population from the point of view of environmental pollution and due to the inconveniences that future expropriations will cause – risks to destroy 11 thousand square meters of forest. Specifically, we are talking about a green lung that constituted the park of the former industrial area of Pettinatura Lanerossi, closed since 1994 and now abandoned, covering approximately 60 thousand square metres. Last Friday the forest was occupied by collectives who oppose its destruction, who are carrying out performances, screenings, activities for children and moments of collective sharing on site. According to plan, in the former Lanerossi the base camp and construction site should be built at the service of the works, but the activists promise battle.
Over the last thirty years, due to the abandonment of the place, nature has taken over the area, which is now a wild forest in which biodiversity has thrived. Among the various animal specimens there are badgers, roe deer and fawns, which are home to majestic trees and at least 75 plant species of about fifty different families. But all this could be swept away, since, as denounced by activists, according to the project of RFI and Iricav Due – General Contractor entrusted with the design and construction of the new high-capacity fast Verona-Padua railway line – the the area affected by the industrial construction site will be the wooded one, where it is planned to create an enormous esplanade of beaten earth and concrete. For this reason the collectives decided to occupy the park, even dismantling the fences that Iricav had positioned in Via Ca’ Alte to delimit the construction site areas. In the meantime, the TAR’s verdict on the appeal presented by Italia Nostra, relating to the project concerning lot 2 (Vicenza Ovest), is expected within days. Among the main reasons for the appeal, there is the fact that it does not comply with “the requirements contained in the preliminary project” on the landscape and historical monumental impact and that it was definitively approved “without having completed all the assessments, all the studies and all the necessary analyses”, including in particular that “of compliance with European and national standards […] which oblige to respect the principle of do not cause significant damage to the environment”. Furthermore, the promoters of the appeal claim that, although it has been defined as a “functional lot for crossing Vicenza”, in reality it would affect “only the western part of the city”, while the eastern part “does not even have a project”.
The Verona-Padua 2nd lot “Crossing of Vicenza” High Speed/Highway Project involves the doubling of the tracks on the Milan-Venice line, including the sections that cross the town centre of the Venetian town. For the implementation of the high-speed plan, several home demolitions are planned, especially in the neighborhoods of San Lazzaro, San Felice and Ferrovieri, among the most populous in Vicenza. Entire condominiums to be demolished, for a total of approximately 62,316 square meters of surface area, and dozens of families who will have to abandon their homes for compensation. The work will modify 6.2 kilometers of stretch with related interventions to the entire road network in the western part of the city, up to the railway station in the historic center. The inhabitants opposed to the TAV, who progressively animated several protests, accused the administration of not having considered, in addition to the citizens’ opinion, the environmental impact of the work and the impacts on those living in the affected area.
[di Stefano Baudino]
