Chloe Glover (Reporter)
FOURTEEN Spanish cities have been ordered to make public their plans to tackle urban pollution.
Sevilla and Granada, two of the most popular tourist destinations, are among those who must demonstrate their commitment to cutting levels in the short term.
This is because the Andalucian cities are still among the most contaminated in the country, despite having launched anti-pollution plans several years ago.
The order has been made by Soledad Becerril, the Spanish state ombudsman, who also told cities like Madrid, Barcelona, Murcia and Valencia to clean up their act and re-evaluate their existing plans to reduce pollution.
Last year, authorities in Granada and Sevilla were rapped on the knuckles by the World Health Organisation, which revealed that pollution there had surpassed the acceptable level.
This meant that people’s health and the environment were at risk of being damaged.
According to green campaign group Ecologistas en Accion, traffic continues to be one of the biggest causes of pollution in the areas.
From the foothills of the Snowy mountains close to Guadix you could see the yellow haze of the smog over Granada and that’s 60K away, same virtually al over the ‘developed’ world, maybe Copenhagen and Groningen are exceptions.
Granada built a metro system at huge cost, has’nt this helped. Now if the’d built a light railway to connect all the satellite villages that have sprung up (mainly on fertile flood plain land) would’nt that have seriously reduced car use, sorry that’s too logical and rational.