tenerife motor circuit supreme court suspension

Tenerife Circuit contracts suspended after court blow

Compiled with the help of artificial intelligence, based on Spanish-language information. Source below the article.

Tenerife Cabildo partially suspends motor circuit contract after Supreme Court setback

The Cabildo de Tenerife has “partially and provisionally” suspended one of the contracts for the Circuito del Motor, the island’s long-contested motor racing circuit. Specifically, the contract concerned is the one relating to the Earthworks and Removable Installations Project, one of the four into which the works were divided.

The decision comes after the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal lodged by the Cabildo against the ruling that confirmed the nullity of this project and which also concluded that the circuit’s environmental impact declaration had expired. “At this moment, we are assessing the Supreme Court’s order establishing the inadmissibility of the cassation appeal submitted in relation to this procedure,” sources at the corporation presided over by Rosa Dávila (Coalición Canaria) explained.

The High Court’s ruling is final and rejects the cassation appeal on the grounds of “lack of sufficient substantiation” and “absence of objective cassational interest”. It also orders the island corporation to pay procedural costs up to a maximum of 1,000 euros.

Other works await court rulings

As for the paralysation of the rest of the works, which occupy 650,000 square metres of land in the municipality of Granadilla, the Cabildo “is waiting for the courts to rule on the other three judicial proceedings that remain pending resolution”. The parts of the project still awaiting a judicial decision are the modified project for phase 2 of the north access, the adaptation of the motor circuit to the Flood Defence Plan, and the modified project for the speed track.

ATAN demands full halt and restoration

ATAN (the Tenerife Association of Friends of Nature) has demanded the immediate halting of the entire works, the restoration of the destroyed land and the establishment of legal and political responsibilities.

The Supreme Court has sided with the environmentalists, who argue that the circuit is “contrary to the law” because its environmental impact declaration has expired and it therefore lacks environmental and legal cover. “No one at the Cabildo can say they didn’t know. ATAN warned in 2022, during the allegations process; the Cabildo’s own technicians warned; the Ombudsman warned in January 2024, when he cautioned that the 2016 site layout record could have been a mere formality to dodge the expiry. The first-instance courts warned. The High Court of Justice of the Canary Islands warned on appeal. And now the Supreme Court has ruled,” ATAN continues.

The environmentalists complain that, despite all of this, the Cabildo pressed ahead, “both under Rosa Dávila and under Pedro Martín”. “It continued destroying territory after the TSJC confirmed the expiry, with the sole aim of imposing a fait accompli, wrecking the area so that nothing would remain and getting the machinery in before the courts’ final decision arrived,” they criticise.

ATAN denounces that the Cabildo de Tenerife has “put an illegal project” ahead of the environment and of the warnings of judges and institutions. “This Cabildo is responsible for this illegality, for the environmental damage caused and for the squandering of millions of euros of public money on a project that everyone knew was dead,” they conclude.

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