Theatre and train stations: “We’ll help Varese”

Lombardy Region is going to help Varese town council, and will try to support all of the projects that require input by the regional council. This is what Regional President Roberto Maroni, said this morning, during an institutional summit meeting in Varese town hall, in which Mayor Attilio Fontana, Deputy Mayor Carlo Baroni, Regional Council Speaker Raffaele Cattaneo and local Council Member Fabio Binelli took part.

“The Region will play its part in all of the projects that the council has presented to us,” Maroni said. “We talked about a number of projects and how to support them.” In particular, Lombardy Region is the main party in a number of programme agreements, such as the project for combining the stations, the new road system for Sacro Monte, the transformation of the former clothing factory, Malerba, the transformation of the Biumo hill into an integrated system of parks and congress centres. And there is the issue of Piazza Repubblica. Some time ago, Varese town council asked the Region to establish a programme agreement to eliminate the temporary theatre and to build a permanent one. The urban plan was presented to the town two years ago, in a project funded by a private citizen who, in return, would be able to construct buildings and shops. Maroni replied, “We are willing to discuss all of these issues immediately. There will be a meeting between technicians from the Region and representatives of the town hall, in Palazzo Lombardia, next Wednesday.”

Mayor Attilio Fontana was satisfied and claimed, “We seem to be going in the right direction. The urban problems are enormous. Since its first mandate, the Fontana council has sought to complete all of these projects, most of which, however, are stuck in the bureaucratic stage. The help of Lombardy Region is important, because Milan must be involved in the work, which includes commercial sales outlets, for example, in Viale Europa, in the former Malerba factory, in Piazza Repubblica, and in the stations.

Maroni also made some reference to the future. “We talked about these priorities,” he said, “but we also talked about other projects in the future, such as the large hotel in Campo dei Fiori, and the second cableway.” Maroni added that the plan to convert the hotel into a police training school has been postponed for the moment, but he said no more about the cableway. “We’re in the preliminary phase,” he said. “For the hotel, the plan will certainly never be to turn it into a casino, given that we’re presenting bills to limit gambling in Lombardy.”