«Economic, social and environmental sustainability are the three pillars on which to build the Lecce of the future – declares Carlo Salvemini – our home is the city and to be so it must be sustainable. We must take care of it from an economic point of view, which is the basis on which to build the future, complete the recovery process, from the 104 million euro deficit in 2019 we have gone to around 50 today, and unlock resources for maintenance and investments. We must act on social sustainability, in the spirit of the Next Generation EU and complete the ongoing investments for new public and social housing, nursery schools, school canteens and interventions in favor of marginalized people. And then act on environmental sustainability, because we are in a climate crisis and the city needs to breathe, with investment in public green areas, with the thirteen agroforestry parks envisaged by the PUG, with the strengthening of separate waste collection, energy efficiency and the creation of energy communities in neighborhoods. And with strong public transport, because there are too many cars and we need to help people find a more sustainable alternative.”
Sustainability is the idea that will guide the policies of the municipal administration in the next five years, to guarantee the growth of Lecce as a medium-sized city in Southern Italy capable of being in Europe and competing with the medium-sized cities of other countries. Mayor Salvemini’s government program is inspired by the value of sustainability, expressed in the three different meanings of economic, social and environmental sustainability.
Economic sustainability is the objective that we will achieve through the recovery of the budget of the Municipality of Lecce. A process that began in 2019 with the approval of the multi-year rebalancing maneuver, continued with the signing of the Pact for the city signed in December 2022 with the Government and with the subsequent achievement in the 2024 Budget – thanks to the commitment of Mayor Salvemini together with Anci – of resources intended to accompany and facilitate the recovery process of medium-sized cities undergoing rebalancing maneuvers.
From 2028, the Municipality of Lecce will be able to “free up” around 6.5 million euros per year in its budget which is currently set aside to deal with the rebalancing plan. These sums will be allocated to current spending, i.e. the services that the administration provides to citizens on a daily basis to support their quality of life: maintenance of green areas, with the aim of bringing per capita spending, which currently stands at 24 euros, to 40 euros by the end of the council period; small maintenance interventions on public spaces, roads and pavements; to street furniture and public space equipment; to the financing of cultural and entertainment policies and initiatives. The recovery will also allow us to recover the possibility of taking out loans from the Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, to finance the construction of small and large public works with municipal funds, without having to rely exclusively on European, national and regional financing (which have also guaranteed in these years the most impressive public investment plan in the recent history of the city).
Social sustainability inspires functional policies and investments to guarantee the reduction of inequalities, to close the gap in inequalities that has widened due to the economic consequences of the pandemic. The Next Generation EU program, designed for this purpose, offered financing opportunities that the Municipality of Lecce was able to seize, acquiring approximately 60 million euros of investments intended to strengthen social infrastructures to support marginalization, housing suffering, offer of services aimed at inclusion.
The Municipality of Lecce will thus be able to enhance the offer of public residential housing in the coming years, with the construction of 60 homes in Via Flumendosa and the most important social housing project in Southern Italy at the former Galateo anti-tuberculosis sanatorium in the neighborhood Leuca. Investments that are added to those in support of student housing and social housing in the neighborhoods already planned in San Pio, in the historic center and in the other neighborhoods of the city. New services will be created in the coming years in favor of the extreme marginalised, with the new home for the homeless, ready to open, in Via Bernardino Realino and the service center at the former equestrian station in Via Lequile; parenting skills in vulnerable families; social services to support home care, support programs for women victims of violence. With structural interventions underway, three schools in the city will be equipped with canteens and gyms. And for the recognition of the social value of sport, with the creation of sports facilities in the city’s neighborhoods (Via Potenza, Via Carrà, Viale dello Stadio) and playgrounds in the neighborhoods.
Environmental sustainability concerns Lecce’s ability to face the consequences of climate change, equipping itself to give value to its rich arboreal heritage (more than 28 thousand trees in public areas in the city, according to the tree census, which grew by around 4 thousand specimens in the five-year period 2019- ’24 according to the tree balance) and expand it, to better withstand heat waves and extreme weather events. To the investment in urban and peri-urban greenery, with the Green Plan and the forecast within the new PUG of thirteen agroforestry parks that will surround the city, with forestation interventions, agricultural soils and areas intended for the slow use of the landscape found between the city and the coast and represents a little-known heritage of our city.
A sustainable Lecce is the one that will create the new Lecce Marine Coastal Park, foreseen in the PUG, and thanks to the institutional development contract and other funding sources that will guarantee regeneration, accessibility and road, cycle and pedestrian routes between San Cataldo and Torre Rinalda. Thanks to the constant work on the removal of landscape detractors, with the removal of illegal constructions on maritime state property.
A sustainable Lecce is one that knows how to manage its waste, which has already reached 70.16% of separate waste collection and wants to do even better, thanks to the investments guaranteed by the Pnrr on the new municipal waste collection center in Via Belloluogo and the intelligent ecological islands which will be carried out in strategic points in the neighborhoods and in the historic centre, to further improve the percentage of separate waste collection and support the digital collection tracking system, to guarantee citizens punctual pricing.
A sustainable Lecce is the city that works for the energy efficiency of the public and private building stock, also encouraging the ecological reconversion of properties with incentives and which develops energy communities: as in Piazzale Cuneo, where the participation process has already begun which will lead to the creation of the first energy community in the city thanks to photovoltaics on the roofs of public residential buildings.
A sustainable Lecce is one that from one of the most motorized cities in Europe will become the city of public, cycling and pedestrian mobility, thanks to the strategy of the sustainable mobility urban plan: more efficient public transport, the completion of the municipal cycle network, the expansion of accessible sidewalks and the construction of car parks in Piazza Tito Schipa, Foro Boario and the railway station.
