In spite of an EU law brought in stating that municipalities of more than 50,000 inhabitants must have a low emissions zone in their areas of busiest traffic, the administration of Mijas Council has not yet introduced such a scheme.
Mijas is deceptively big. Most visitors to Mijas Pueblo often go away with the idea that it’s simply a small village, when in reality, the Mijas municipal area covers an expanse of homes to 91,000 residents, number three in the ranking of biggest boroughs on the western Costa del Sol, after Malaga and Marbella.
For this reason, Mijas Council, in line with the Climate Change and Energy Transition law, is working on introducing a low emissions zone (LEZ) to be implemented by mid-2025. Although exactly what and where the new restrictions to traffic will apply is still being studied.
LEZ should have been in place by January
The objective of the LEZ air quality controls is to reduce emissions into the atmosphere and consists of carrying out a diagnosis of mobility and traffic in the municipality to delimit those overloaded areas and taking measures that reduce private vehicle use. All of this should have been finalised and in place before January 1 this year, but this has not been the case in many towns, and Mijas is particularly behind schedule.
The measures we can expect to be implemented could include, green and blue parking zones (green for residents only and blue for visitors paying at a parking metre), limitations on the age of a vehicle given that newer cars tend to have lower toxic emissions, or limitations to access by private vehicles at certain times of the day.
