Torrelavega

Country: Spain

City: Torrelavega

Torrelavega is a small city in the north of Spain close to Santander and Bilbao. The city started to grow in the ’60s and ’70s, with the rise of the workforce in big companies such as Solvay, Sniace, Bridgestone, and others, which are in the city. Around 51.000 people live there at the moment.

All the buildings that were built in those years are without lifts. This constitutes an important problem for citizens, as the lack of accessibility generates social problems, exclusion, inequality, depression, etc.

There are a lot of impediments that make the installation of lifts difficult. Among these, are urban laws, architecture regulations and lack of financial capacity. The idea is to start a project that addresses these elements altogether together with the city hall that has, as a final result, the installation of lifts in the neighbourhood.

One of the actions that can be implemented is the innovative concept of “pay per use”. In the case of economic problems to finance the installation of the lift, the partners may pay the installation cost, and this cost is returned by the users depending on use.