The Fano-Grosseto affair and its reopening reaches the Compliance Committee of the Aarhus Convention by virtue of an appeal against the Italian State of Voices of the Valley, a collective of people united against the current construction project of the highway, according to them too impactful for Mercatello sul Metauro and surrounding areas.
The Aarhus Convention is an international treaty aimed at guaranteeing transparency and citizen participation in public choices and its Compliance Committee has preliminarily accepted this appeal which accuses the Italian State of not having respected the principles of public participation envisaged by the Convention during the phases of project planning.
“This project – comments the collective – has raised significant concerns among residents due to the expected environmental and social impacts. We are pleased that the Compliance Committee has preliminarily recognized the validity of our concerns. This road project was carried out without respecting the fundamental principles of public participation and transparency. Our community deserves to have a say in decisions that directly affect our lives and the environment. We look forward to presenting our case and hope that this will lead to a reconsideration of the project a favor of a more sustainable and inclusive approach”.
Among the points contested are a lack of initial and effective public participation as the public, including those directly affected by the expropriations, were not informed at an early stage, nor had the opportunity to participate in the decision-making process when all options were still open but also the inaccessibility of information. Voci della Valle also disputes that public input was ignored and that the reasons behind the approval of the project were not communicated transparently to the public. Discussion within the Compliance Committee in the coming weeks.
Andrea Angelini
