While parents, like every day, for three years, have placed the barrier of blocking the School Crossing between Atxuri Street and the Ibéni Pier, so that the buses that release the sidewalk do not take in front of the children who leave school, we are surprised to see the advertising marquesina in front of the school: “Bilbao, the city you want”. Really?

The City of Bilbao marks with the children of the city a great slogan and a declaration of excessive intentions, but unfortunately it is far from reality.

It is true that public administrations should serve people. Especially municipalities, which are the entities closest to citizenship. The logic leads you to think that the list of priorities of the City Hall will be the impulse and design of neighborhoods respectful and respectful of the people who live in it, especially the most vulnerable.

As families in this educational community, we believe that should be the case. It seems most sensible. And in particular, schools and the school environment should ensure in a healthy and safe way the development of our sons and daughters.

In the patio of García Rivero College in Atxuri, noise and pollution rates exceed the WHO recommendations. Moreover, the WHO recommends that the daily concentration of PM 2.5 particles should not exceed four times a year. These particles have a high penetration capacity in the airways, exceeding in nine of the ten days measured in our school. Noise levels have also been exceeded daily, which is directly related to the objection of the learning process. These measurements have been carried out as part of a scientifically proven UPV/EHU research. This data is known to the City Hall.

Faced with this painful reality, we have been demanding for years basic and feasible improvements to improve our school and its environment, and with our means we have made proposals in which bureaucratic procedures, meetings with different municipal areas, hours with technicians, etc. They have exhausted our patience with the reports. We were surprised and angry that the proposals that were accepted in one day became unworkable in a few months. Budgets magically disappeared -- it's not a matter of ingestion, it's a matter of political will. It is a question of correcting the will in one sense or another and therefore building one type of city or another.

The main lines of intervention with the City Hall for the improvement of the school environment of Atxuri are two.

The first is to reduce pollution and risk in the area around the school, removing a traffic lane and expanding the sidewalk with trees. Feasible and easy. The City Council’s refusal is due to the fact that they envisage a significant increase in the number of vehicles. Amazing. And furthermore, the absolute priority of the car over the pedestrian, even taking precedence over the health of our children. Traffic flow is the most important thing. They have recognised this in our strange surprise.

The second line is to improve the school's own infrastructure. The city council responsible for school infrastructure proposed to allocate a Next Generation fund to improve the windows in 2022. After a full course, and with the budget line allocated and announced, in October last year we were told that everything is standing and that the money has disappeared.

No, the City of Bilbao and its authorities are not friends with children. Let us be clear. Respectful of cars and their emissions, they are reconciled with noise and risk. They have projected on our streets a future that will greatly increase the car and still do not make bold decisions. All this goes against European standards, low emission policies, woodland needs and green areas, etc. It is not a whim, it is essential for the future of cities and neighbourhoods.

We are on time. The Atxuri family and its educational community are ready to work and continue making reasonable proposals. All this in order to provide our school with a decent and healthy environment, to ensure safe environments for our children, so that Bilbao is respectful and child-friendly. It's a slogan because it's a necessity. But is the City of Bilbao prepared to make reasonable decisions?

For the Association of Parents of Students of the School García Rivero de Atxuri, signed by the president of the AMPA, Joana Regueiro Martinez