Pombal, Leiria, Portugal, March 26, 2025 (Lusa) - The local council in the Portuguese town of Pombal on Wednesday considered that the route proposed for the Soure - Carregado section of the high-speed railway line between Lisbon and Porto would cause unacceptable damage and could lead to the "gradual disappearance of the existing water source".
The municipality's opinion as part of the public consultation on the environmental impact study for that section of the track, which ended on Friday, was submitted on the participa.pt platform and unanimously approved today at a meeting of the municipal executive.
For the municipality, led by Pedro Pimpão, in addition to "the impacts in terms of spatial planning, socioeconomics, land use, heritage, landscape, among others, water resources are also of great concern, given the high hydrological and hydrogeological density in the areas affected by the construction" of the future high-speed line, which "could represent the gradual disappearance of the existing water source".
Claiming that "the construction of the infrastructure represents an irreversible loss of quality of life for the communities concerned", the Leiria district municipality argues that the route should be rethought in order to "find a solution with less impact on the land, on the public and on water resources".
The Porto - Lisbon high-speed line, on electrified double track, will allow a maximum speed of 300 kilometres per hour and is intended for passenger traffic.
The Soure - Carregado section, which includes a station in Leiria, crosses the districts of Rio Maior, Azambuja, Alenquer, Cadaval, Caldas da Rainha, Alcobaça, Porto de Mós, Leiria, Marinha Grande and Pombal.
In the environmental impact study commissioned by Infraestruturas de Portugal (the country's infrastructure company), there are two solutions for the Soure-Carregado stretch, A and B. The first is almost 116 kilometres long and the second is just over 117 kilometres, with various alternative routes being presented according to the basic solutions.
In today's opinion, the Pombal council points out that the district will be crossed by the high-speed line "on its central axis and that this will be “yet another physical barrier, in addition to the Northern [with a station in Pombal] and Western railway lines”, motorways 1 and 17, Itinerário Complementar 2 and Estrada Nacional 109".
The Pombal council says that although the opinion is unfavourable to the two proposed solutions, B is still the least penalising for the area, as it will affect a smaller number of buildings (12 houses, plus one uninhabited house and seven company buildings).
In the document, the municipality also wants the high-speed railway solution to include measures for the district.
Recognising that the future high-speed line will dictate an orientation of the current Northern Line (the main Lisbon-Porto line) towards interurban (intercity and interregional trains), local (suburban and regional trains) and freight services, the opinion states that it is "crucial that this release of capacity" is matched by "an adequate and effective interurban offer that ensures the connection of Pombal to cities such as Lisbon, Santarém, Entroncamento, Coimbra, Aveiro, Porto and Braga, adequately ensuring the transfer to high-speed services".
"Likewise, it is necessary, as a guarantee that there is no loss of service in relation to the service currently available on the Northern Line (Pombal), to continue to ensure, on this same line, a service equivalent to the Alfa Pendular train currently available," it says, also calling for the "modernisation of the Western Line and the rehabilitation and opening of Guia station" in the district of Pombal.
Among other measures, the municipality is calling for the construction of a line to Leiria, providing intercity services between the two cities and for the "monitoring of surface and underground water resources", which "should be started before the construction phase, monitored during the execution project and continued during the operation phase".
SR/AYLS // AYLS
Lusa
