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ARCHIVED - Palma de Mallorca to ban horse-drawn carriages from 2024
Palma City Council will replace the animals with electric vehicles
Animal activists in Mallorca have secured a great victory this week as the City Council in Palma has announced that horse-drawn carriages will be banned from the streets from 2024 and instead replaced with electric vehicles. This will ensure the safety and welfare of the equines as well as guaranteeing ongoing work for the drivers.
The carriages are very popular with tourists all around Spain, offering a unique way to explore its cities. However, the practice has been criticised for years and has come under particularly heavy fire during the recent heatwaves, when several reports emerged of animals dropping in the streets from exhaustion or dehydration.
The move towards replacing horses with electric vehicles will be made gradually, and Palma council will establish a line of subsidies to facilitate the purchase of the new modes of transport.
Not everyone is happy about the regulations, however, and the drivers themselves have criticised the regional government for failing to involve them in the decision. It will go ahead nevertheless, and the Deputy Mayor for Mobility, Francesc Dalmau, praised the “move towards the transformation of this municipal service with a long tradition in Palma."
In the meantime, to protect the horses from the scalding temperatures predicted for August, carriages will no longer be allowed to operate if there is a yellow, orange or red heat warning in place.
The Deputy Mayor pointed out that next month “will be one of the least hot of those that await us in the future,” a sentiment echoed by experts who believe climate change will lead to more frequent and intense heatwaves in the years to come. Therefore now is the ideal time, he added, to transition from horse-drawn to motorised transport.
Guillermo Amengual, from Progreso en Verde, urged decision makers to “be brave and set a specific date for their substitution, because the horses cannot wait any longer.”
Image: Flickr
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