if the vehicles are now going to run on electricity
rather than on petrol and we control the electricity in
Gibraltar, we can essentially be the BP, the Shell, the
Rockefeller Petroleum, the Mobil, the Texaco, of the
next hundred years for every vehicle that runs here
in Gibraltar. Which means that if you think of these
corporations, yes, they make a lot of money because
they sell you the actual physical petrol, but the profit
they make is very small because you’ve got to take
it out from the centre of the earth, refine it, move it,
then put it in a very controlled environment and then
you then you have to provide facilities to pump it into
vehicles, its extraordinarily complicated. If you actu-
ally think about who worked out that we should use
oil which comes out crude, to then refine it to pow-
er engines, it was actually doing things the hardest
way around. We are going to start doing things in a
simpler way, which is to use battery powered vehi-
cles. So, now, when you consider the 2-3 pence of
profit for every litre of petrol used by each vehicle,
we can take those 2-3 pence of profit in respect of
every kilowatt hour it takes to charge electric vehi-
cles. So, for the tax payer, although there would be
a front-loaded cost in providing these charging sta-
tions, it is potentially a very lucrative market in the
long term as every vehicle that is used on our roads
will be charged by us, and therefore we will make
a profit.
It would be nice to see that amount reinvested
back into renewables.
We might not need to by then. By then the idea of
renewables may be ubiquitous. By the time you’ve
got to that stage, you’re probably running almost en-
tirely on renewables anyway.
Although the new LNG power station is an im-
provement on the previous diesel station, many
environmental groups see it as just an interim
solution. They consider a move toward renewa-
ble sources the only viable option. In your mani-
festo renewables are mentioned, could you tell us
more about any concrete plans to switch over to
wind, solar power etc?
I don’t think that Gibraltar has the geography to
enable us to power the whole of Gibraltar from re-
newables. So, I think we need to look at two differ-
ent options. We need to look at powering individual
areas with renewables, so making each building
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self-supported by renewable energy so that they
take less from the grid, and potentially importing
renewable energy. We have been discussing having
a cable in from Morocco which brings would bring
solar energy for use. You have to amortise the cost of
that cable against the cost of the electricity that you
are going to be providing. So those are two key fac-
tors to look at to be able to make the most of the re-
newable energy that is available not just in Gibraltar,
but around the area as well. You also need a copper
bottom guarantee that there will be electricity, so I
think we do need to have a fossil fuel burning facility
available. Success would mean that the fossil fuel
burning facility is operating as little as possible. And
in the context of the sort of fossil fuel burning facili-
ties that are available, if you are an island economy,
as we are for electricity, water and waste purposes,
then LNG is the best technology available today.
The bicycle lanes you have published in your
manifesto look amazing and we are really look-
ing forward to seeing these new lanes, but it does
look like a logistical nightmare to connect all
the walls. Do you have any proper plans you can
share with us to publish? How long do you think
this would take to build?
What you see in the manifesto are the ideas of
the political party. The political party is then elected
and now the civil service is developing those plans.
Some plans have already been developed as we
were already in government prior to the elections.
Connecting the lanes is a difficult issue and there
will be areas where we will have to work with the
Ministry of Heritage and the Heritage Trust because
we may need to add things to our walls. These are
designed to ensure that the wall is still visible, and
so that people can see that it is an addendum for a
purpose. I think the value of being able to walk or
ride on our walls is huge and I think it makes Gibral-
tar not just more attractive from the point of view of
transport, but makes us more attractive as a healthy
place to live in, where you can walk or ride your bicy-
cle from one point to theother. I think it is also mak-
ing Gibraltar more attractive for tourists as well, the
High Line in Manhattan is a real tourist attraction
and I think Walk the Wall in Gibraltar could also be
- remember that for people from the United States,
these walls are older than the United States itself.
OTWO 05 / DECEMBER 2019
There will have to be compromises as well, we need
to understand that we’ve been prioritising car traffic
for too long and we need to create rights of way for
pedestrians and cyclists in a way that encourages
people to realise that these are now the preferred
forms of transport.
Has Gibraltar Heritage been positive about these
plans?
The balance here is what you get in return, re-
member that the Parish Hall will disappear. The
Parish Hall is a second world war car bunker which
obscures the old heritage wall. So, there is a value
in doing Walk the Wall in that sense as well. All you
are going to have to do is add some protection for
the general public in some areas, as we have already
done very successfully in Wellington Front working
with the Heritage Trust. Working together we can
do the project in a manner that doesn’t detract from
the heritage value we have in our walls, and also
enables us to create the thoroughfare that we want.
Taking people back to nature is the best way the
public can be made to understand the need there
is to protect it. Activities done in these areas is
the biggest incentive to get people to enjoy it,
skate parks, picnic areas, rock climbing, moun-
tain bike treks etc. What ideas are there to incor-
porate in the upper rock and the very welcomed
mount area such activities?
If you look at what has happened in the Upper
Rock in the last 8 years, a lot of areas have already
been cleared and we’ve created those new picnic
areas which were just not there, we’ve invested mil-
lions of pounds in the Upper Rock. The Upper Rock
Nature Reserve had literally zero investment in 16
years. A lot of areas including the north and south
of Tovey cottage, by Princess Caroline’s, have been
cleared and picnic facilities have been added, so I
think we are doing quite well there. If you look at
the area of the Northern Defences and what is being
proposed, it really is going to be a theme park. What
we are going to propose at the Mount is really going
to blow people away, and as you say will get people
out of their homes, it will also provide a different
way to get people to exercise. It’s our aim to get our
children to know and love areas of the Upper Rock,
the nooks and crannies that make us familiar with
the Rock as our home and I can’t think of anything
OTWO 05 / DECEMBER 2019
better for people to do at the weekends or on an
evening after school. I’m very excited about what
that is going to be because I think additionally it is
also going to drive tourism to Gibraltar, so again this
also plays into my idea of these changes working
both in terms of the Health Ministry, the Transport
Ministry, the Tourism Ministry, delivering a green
Gibraltar and delivering a child friendly city. All
these objectives get tied up into one, you can’t do
one without the other, once you’ve done one, you’ve
delivered the other.
As per the GSLP Manifesto, more recycling bins
have been promised around Gibraltar. Howev-
er, we have heard that the collection services
responsible are struggling to keep up with the
current demand as is. How will this be managed?
We need to be ramping up the resources availa-
ble here, what you’re telling me sounds like a suc-
cess story. People are recycling more and we need
to upgrade how we collect the amount of waste
out there, that’s the best news I’ve had all month.
We’ve spent a lot of money promoting recycling. If
the public are recycling more now and we need to
collect more waste, that means that the advertising
is hitting the target and we need to keep going down
the road of ensuring that people don’t feel that their
recycling is not being collected or that it is somehow
a useless endeavour. They need to feel it is being
collected quickly and that it going back into the sys-
tem in some way. So, I am very keen to understand
where those failings are to be able to correct that.
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