The Motril Town Hall has decided to carry out a study of its surface parking system, with a little help from Granada University.

Motril, like any town with 60,000 inhabitants, has a traffic problem with heavy traffic saturation. Parking or a lack of ‘free parking’ is generating what is called tráfico de agitación, which is a term used to describe the movement of cars around town in search of somewhere to park.

“When we have all the facts,” explained the Mayor, Luisa García Chamorro, “we can reorganize parking using the data for deficit and surplus parking areas; we can sort out the points of attraction, such as schools, law courts and the hospital.”

And here the Mayor used that word that politicians love: “sustainable,” which has the feel-good buzz like “light” or “without additives.” She coupled it to “mobility” to form “sustainable mobility” – quite what it means is anybody’s guess but the point is that it sounds positive.

She went on to explain that the study could point out if areas are “duly regulated’ (read blue zoned) to achieve ‘rotational parking’ and whether the loading/unloading areas are correctly located and sufficient for the task.

The loss of the parking area near the Guardia Civil post – which will eventually have a block of flats slapped on it, doesn’t actually help the parking problem. Nor does the the elimination of the free-parking patch on the Puntalón roundabout, in a thinly disguised move to force people to use the blue-zone across the road from there, which is costing the Town Hall a packet because they have to make up the shortfall in takings to the company that runs it.

One thing that you can be certain of, there will be less free parking once the study has been ‘acted upon.’

(News: Motril, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)