After more than three years without success, the Consell de Ibiza has put on hold the search for a site to install its second fixed plant for the Technical Inspection of Vehicles (ITV). The Consell is betting that the Govern’s Decree Law 3/2024 of simplification, thanks to which the service can be provided entirely by companies that meet certain requirements, will come into operation.
“The Consell has put on hold the search for land until we see how the new decree behaves,” the island’s government has informed La Voz de Ibiza. As they have clarified, this decision aims to “not duplicate work”.
Years of search
Since the end of 2021, the insular agency had been looking for a site to establish a second fixed point for ITV, which was expected to have between two and three lines, in order to reduce the delays that had become common when requesting a shift. According to the appraisal study carried out at that time, the cost of the plot would be around 3.45 million euros and its surface area would be around 2,640 square meters in the case of the plant having two lines for the inspection of light vehicles. However, this space could be increased to 5,320 square meters if an additional line exclusively for heavy vehicles were added. The search, however, ran into difficulties as the months went by. On the one hand, the limitations included in the Insular Territorial Plan, which excluded the possibility of the plants being located on rural land. On the other hand, the refusal of many landowners to sell their plots.
Insufficient stations
The search to install a new ITV station responds to the fact that, in light of the delays that are recurrently reported, the two that the Consell de Ibiza currently has are not enough. One is fixed and of public management, installed in Santa Gertrudis. The other is mobile, is located at the Fairgrounds and the service is provided by the private company Vega Baja SA (Itevebasa)which also operates in Murcia, Extremadura and Castilla-La Mancha.
Months of delay in the ITV in Ibiza
At both stations, getting a shift has long been a three- to six-month delay, even though, depending on the availability of the day, immediate shifts are released in cases of casualties. Currently, a search for a light vehicle results in a wait of almost four months for the nearest shift at either station.
The mobile station at the Fairgrounds, which has been in operation since 2020, was intended to be a “temporary” solution. In principle, it was going to offer services until 2022, then until 2024 and, last year, the link with Vega Baja was renewed until 2027, for a budget of 4 million euros and the possibility of extending the contract even until 2028. What will happen to this station in the event that the ITV services on the island are outsourced? From the Consell they have said that “if the authorization regime included in the Govern’s decree works well, the station at the Recinto Ferial will be put out to tender again when the concession is over”. On the other hand, it is not in the Consell’s plans to stop directly managing the fixed station currently operating.
The commitment to private initiative
The Decree Law 3/2024 of May 24 on simplification of the Govern included, among other issues, the possibility for the island councils to allow private companies to carry out the ITV inspections. The text states that the technical inspections of vehicles can be executed “through the direct management of the corresponding insular council”, also through “a mixed economy company” or “by private companies, with their own staff and under administrative concession or authorization, in accordance with the territorial distribution and the form and conditions of the provision of the service that, for this purpose, each insular council determines”. This decree would come into force during the first semester of 2025, the Government expects. The autonomous Executive had justified that “a regime with a greater dose of liberalization will mean an exponential increase of ITV stations in the territory, while it will bring other benefits for users, since in this scenario operators compete in variables such as location, schedule, additional services and price”. In both Ibiza and Formentera, the ITV is managed directly by the respective island councils. The same happens in Mallorca, despite the fact that for a time the island opted to outsource the service. In Menorca, the service is outsourced. In the case of Formentera, which has just renewed its machinery for the service, numerous delays have also been reported in order to carry out the vehicle inspection.
