Ponte sullo Stretto, construction site postponed. The dossier in extra time
The Strait of Messina company is asking for four months to respond to the findings of the Environment Ministry's Via Vas Commission. But in a note, the Ministry of Infrastructure says that '2024 will be the year of the bridge' and that 'work will start in the coming months'.
2' min read
2' min read
The Strait Bridge goes into overtime. As was to be expected, the avalanche of checks requested by the Via Vas Commission could not realistically be resolved in the blink of an eye, and the 30 days available to respond became 120, when the Stretto di Messina company asked for an extension, as predicted by Sole24Ore and as required by the regulations. It is therefore clear that the construction sites will not be able to open by the summer as Minister Salvini would like, but not even in September as has long been predicted, given the mountain of procedures and administrative steps that the project will have to go through unscathed. In order to see the first bulldozers at work, we will have to wait until 2025, although the Ministry of Infrastructure last night stressed that "2024 will be the year of the bridge" and that "work will in any case start in the coming months".
The extension
Stretto di Messina's managing director announced the postponement of the delivery of the heavy dossier until mid-September: "The decision - said Pietro Ciucci in a note - is motivated by the exceptional importance of the work and reflects the Company's willingness and maximum commitment to provide timely and exhaustive answers to the requests for additions and clarifications on the technical drawings of the final project for the bridge over the Strait of Messina, presented by the Via and Vas Commission of the Mase". According to the CEO, "some of the in-depth studies involve field surveys, such as further terrestrial, bathymetric and underwater faunistic surveys, to which the Company intends to devote the utmost attention, making full use of the time allowed by the regulations".
The Via Vas Commission
The derogation will also entail the handover of the dossier on the work from the current Via Vas Commission to the new one: on 24 May, all forty members of the first pool dedicated to 'ordinary' works (there is a second one that deals exclusively with Pnrr works) will relinquish their mandate and will have to be replaced by 70 new members appointed by the ministry led by Pichetto Fratin.
