Not Insist on the URAYSİM Project

Eskişehir City Council President Nuray Akçasoy said, “URAYSİM project, which is not suitable for public interest, should not be insisted on.”

Nuray Akçasoy made the following statements in her statement;

"National Rail Systems Test and Research Center" URAYSİM project, which was started to be built with the cooperation of the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure and Anadolu University, unfortunately continues to come to our agenda.

Our Alpu plain has been declared a “Great Plain” by the decision of the Council of Ministers and it is not legal to use it for any purpose other than agriculture. Despite this law, an expropriation area of ​​approximately 6 million square meters between our Alpu-Bozan, Karahüyük, Gündüzler, Margı, Sepetçi and Yakakayı neighborhoods has been determined for the construction of the test roads of the URAYSİM project. Upon this, in the lawsuit filed by our Eskişehir Metropolitan Municipality with the Administrative Court on the grounds that this expropriation is 'contrary to the public interest', the expert panel formed by the court concluded that "URAYSİM Project is not in accordance with the public interest". In line with the report of this expert committee, the Administrative Court unanimously decided to stay the execution, as irreparable damages may arise in the event that the action, which is clearly unlawful, is implemented. Then, in the lawsuit filed by the Metropolitan Municipality for the cancellation of the expropriation, the Administrative Court signed an important decision and canceled all the transactions.

As a result of this decision, it has been documented that the URAYSİM Project is not in the public interest. I would like to emphasize that in the railway city of Eskişehir, no one is against URAYSİM or similar projects. However, our scientists say it is not in the public interest to build the project on fertile farmland. Our farmers, who are engaged in agricultural production in Alpu, say 'don't take our fertile lands'. They want the barren lands extending to the north of the Alpu Plain to be preferred as the implementation and expropriation area of ​​the project. The project should be shifted to more barren areas instead of agricultural and livestock lands as our compatriots want. While it is obvious that the implementation of the project in its current form will cause irreparable and impossible damages, while the agenda item related to the URAYSİM Project, which is not suitable for the public interest, is being evaluated in the Provincial Soil Conservation Board, considering that laying rails on the most fertile agricultural lands of our country and our beautiful city will not benefit anyone, one of the board members and we expect them to take decisions to protect the most productive agricultural lands of our city. “Dry Agriculture, Again!” organized by our Metropolitan Municipality in our city. We regret that a project that will put agriculture and animal husbandry activities at such a risk has come to our agenda again on this day, where we discussed issues such as Correct Agricultural Production and healthy nutrition, the importance of which is increasing day by day, with the scientists of the world and our country at the International Symposium titled. As Eskişehir City Council, we will continue to follow the issue”