Valladolid City Council fights ‘disproportionate’ return to Phase 1 order

VALLADOLID Council is taking legal action against the regional government’s decision to put the city back into Phase 1.

The Junta de Castilla y Leon announced earlier on Tuesday that new restrictions will come into force in both Valladolid and Salamanca on September 3 in a bid to halt a rise in the number of new Covid-19 infections.

But the Valladolid authority is furious and is taking the matter to court.

In a statement released on Tuesday afternoon the city administration criticised what it claims is a complete lack of consultation on the move, and argues the measures are “unjustified” and “affect residents’ basic rights.”

The statement also maintains that the measures including tighter restrictions on gatherings are illogical given the activities which are permitted and will have a detrimental impact on the people and businesses which have been taken on to organise events in the city over the coming days.

The council insists that there would have been no risk in staging the events which had been scheduled as all the necessary health and safety precautions like limited numbers and social distancing would have been enforced, pointing to a recent arts and theatre festival as an example.

The city administration also insisted that it has always put health and safety before everything, and if at any time since the start of the pandemic it had concluded that these conditions would not be possible it had called off an event, as with the Virgen de San Lorenzo fiesta.

The statement goes on to describe the new restrictions for the two cities as “disproportionate”, given the Junta has not declared a State of Alarm, and as “arbitrary.”

It also says the council regrets the regional government’s “institutional disloyalty and lack of dialogue.”

In a tweeted response to the statement, Junta Vice-President Francisco Igea hit back at the criticism.

“Valladolid will be the first big council to oppose measures to fight against the pandemic”, he wrote, adding that it was an act “like no other in the whole of Spain.”

“Festivals should not be before citizens’ health”, he ended.