Santander enviará comunicación a vecinos por cambio de nombres de calles franquistas.

The Santander City Council will send a communication to almost 16,000 residents whose streets with Francoist denominations will change names after the modification is approved in the next municipal council meeting on April 24.

This was announced on Tuesday by the Mayor of Santander, Gema Igual, who, in statements to the press, detailed that it concerns the residents of 15 streets whose names will change following the request from the Human Rights Prosecutor’s Office to comply with the Democratic Memory Law.

Igual pointed out that, once the name change is approved in the plenary session, «we will send a communication to these almost 16,000 residents» who will be affected, and after that mandatory prior communication, the street signs will be replaced.

The signs will be ordered after the Plenary session, «on the 25th or 26th,» and their placement will depend on the deadline given by the manufacturing company to the City Council. «When the signs are ordered and a deadline is given, that will be it. It is no longer a deadline of political will, it is an operational deadline, whatever time it takes to manufacture those signs,» she said.

Igual emphasized that, therefore, the effective change will be «when the signs are up,» but she reiterated that the City Council will comply with the Prosecutor’s request «within the one-month deadline,» during which «we activate and resume all the procedures that were already in progress at the City Council.»

In this sense, she reiterated that there has been no «inactivity,» nor «rebellion,» nor «deliberate non-compliance» on the part of the Santander City Council, as she already indicated in her response to the Prosecutor’s Office last Friday and as reported by the City Council on Monday.

She reiterated that her «way» of making changes to the names of these Francoist streets «was completely different,» and consisted of «making these changes as the city naturally underwent changes,» citing the example of Italy Square where, after its renovation, the monument ‘To the heroic Italian legions’ placed in 1938 was removed.

Thus, she pointed out that, in recent years, «we have already removed all the monuments or symbols we had» in the city and «we have changed 16 streets,» which, in her opinion, demonstrates that «there has been no inactivity, no rebellion, nor deliberate non-compliance.»

And, although her approach was different, especially when «the Historical Memory Law has no deadline,» after the Prosecutor’s request to complete them within one month, she reiterated that «the Santander City Council complies with the law.»

She recalled that, following what has already been implemented and with the upcoming change from Alcázar de Toledo street to Cuesta de las Ánimas, the City Council must change the names of «15 streets» and proceed with «the removal of distinctions,» a process that will be activated on April 14 with the convening of the Culture Commission, to be held on the 21st, and will be brought for final approval to the council on the 24th.

Questioned about General Dávila becoming Paseo de Altamira despite residents and memorialist associations proposing it be called Paseo del Alta, Igual stated that she has «one month» to carry it out, a deadline given by the Prosecutor, and to comply, «we resume what was already in progress in 2022.»

Regarding the fact that the majority of the new names are male names – of the 15, there are only two female names (Sargentos Provisionales for Leonor Plantagenet and Zancajo Osorio for Leonor de la Vega) and one shared name (Brunete for Carmen and Joaquín González Echegaray) – the mayor insisted that they are following the 2022 proposal, which «all political groups were aware of,» because «the Prosecutor only gave me a one-month deadline.»

In light of this and when asked if this name change that will now take place could lead to further changes in the future, Igual considered that it will not. «We are not going to be constantly changing, re-changing, re-re-re-changing, and changing the street names again,» she concluded.

The Mayor of Santander made these statements after visiting ‘La Cocina de la Plaza,’ the gastronomic classroom, at the Esperanza Market.