Parking lots and their elimination to make room for a (sunken) pedestrian square are the hot topic at the new San Benedetto market in Cagliari.

Yesterday, Mayor Massimo Zedda presented the executive project to the operators. Today, from the opposition benches, comes the attack of the challenger in the municipal elections for the position of first citizen, Alessandra Zedda: «One thing is certain», she says, «the cancellation of the parking lots represents a blow to the economic heart of the market and risks decreeing its commercial death as has already happened for the market of via Pola and that of Santa Chiara».

In this case, the opposition representative continues, "the effect could be disruptive because San Benedetto is not just a local market but much more, the presence of so many boxers and retailers is today possible only exclusively because the market is frequented by so many citizens coming from all over the Cagliari hinterland and not only by the residents of the neighborhood".

Alessandra Zedda wonders «how it is possible to redesign a work of that size for commercial purposes and not adhere to the minimum rules that, for example, shopping centres must comply with, which by law must have suitable spaces for parking».

The details of the project – which arrived at least a year later than expected – have not yet been made public. But on the subject of parking spaces , the councilor for Economic Development, Carlo Serra, assured that they have already been recovered in the surrounding streets and that, in any case, there will be 150 available in Piazza Nazzari, when the temporary market in Parco della Musica is dismantled at the end of the works. «This is a sensational mystification of reality because they have limited themselves to transforming some parking spaces, already existing and located in Via Sant'Alenixedda, into paid spaces. The first result achieved», continues Alessandra Zedda, «is that today instead three quarters of Via Sant'Alenixedda are off limits to anyone with a pass because in addition to the transformation from parking areas for residents into paid areas, it was well thought out to not allow free parking to all residents in possession of “blue stripes passes”».