“The works are progressing and, at the moment, compared to the timetable illustrated in October 2023 there are no delays. The pace is tight, we have not lost even a day of time”. Michele de Pascale, mayor and president of the Province, illustrates the progress of the works on the road network and for the safety of the territory following the flood. “All the works we had presented were deemed suitable – he adds – and a plan of 30 million euros allocated following ordinance 13 of 31 October 2023 by commissioner Figliuolo was approved”. The process is as follows, explains de Pascale, namely assignment of the design, execution of investigations on the sites, completion of the projects, tenders, identification of the companies and start of the works.
Then he returns to the sender the accusation of not having yet spent the money for the new interventions that the Deputy Minister of Infrastructure Galeazzo Bignami had addressed to him in recent days. “We didn’t understand the meaning of some of the controversies – says de Pascale – that have taken place in recent weeks, which were never even presented by the local authorities involved. The resources will be spent as the work progresses, it would be curious if we paid before carrying out the works. And a deputy minister of Infrastructure should have knowledge of how public tenders work.”
In the post-flood reconstruction phase, the most urgent works were carried out first, for a total of 36 interventions with a total value of approximately 4 million and 200 thousand euros; for example restoration and safety interventions following landslides, reconstruction of road bodies, aimed mainly at allowing reopening to traffic and ensuring traffic.
Therefore, 39 interventions were carried out to make safety and restore the viability of road infrastructures for a cost of approximately 30 million euros. In the plains, work is being carried out in particular on the restoration of the road network, with works in progress and others expected to be awarded in the short term. The very significant interventions on the hills mainly concern the safety of the territory, hit by landslides, on some of the main arteries, for example the provincial roads 302R Brisighellese, 306R ‘Casolana-Riolese’, with the construction of a new road section in variant in the town of Borgo Rivola to relieve it of traffic, and the 63 Valletta-Zattaglia hit hard by a landslide, which will have to be rebuilt with a very complex intervention. These are works in progress or expected to be awarded soon. Alongside de Pascale, the provincial councilor Nicola Pasi recalls that in recent months for the most urgent works “visual work has been carried out on site”, while in the event of landslides it is necessary to proceed through “more in-depth geological investigations, in a more general context “. Next Sunday the Tour de France will cross the territory where the flood hit and will travel along those roads which have been working on in recent weeks and which, Pasi assures, “will be perfectly fine”.
Finally, Massimo Isola, mayor of Faenza, speaks about vital interventions. “It’s not a question – he underlines – of putting patches on, but of making investments that make the difference between keeping a territory and a community alive or not.”
Annamaria Corrado
