The project, with a budget of one million euros, is waiting to be tendered from 2020, something that can be done now, after “correcting a repair”
Pending the final push is, since 2020, the extension work of the Interpretation Center of the Archaeological Ensemble of the Wall of Santa Eulalia. The project, budgeted at around one million euros and which has 210,000 euros of European funds – to be executed until 2023, if they do not want to miss out –, had financing allocated in 2020, according to PP sources. To date, the proposal is still not put out to tender, something that causes concern among residents and merchants in the area, eager to receive “good news”. However, the plenary session of the Murcia City Council yesterday approved an agreement that can bring the neighborhood and the city closer to achieving a new tourist and cultural attraction.
Thus, the corporation yesterday authorized by majority – although with the abstention of Vox – increasing the percentages set for multi-year expenses in order to proceed with the contracting and execution of the expansion of the center. In this way, the financing of the work will now be divided into two annuities, with 556,343.18 euros for 2022 and 553,303 euros for 2023. «We thus corrected a objection made by the Municipal General Intervention and that meant the return of the project to the Department of Tourism, so that now you can continue with the file, process the specifications and open the bidding phase, “said municipal sources. However, the mayor responsible for Contracting, Mario Gómez, did not want to confirm to LA VERDAD if the service he directs was going to get down to work immediately with the specifications.
There will be no footbridge before the construction of the bridge between El Raal and Beniel, and an attempt will be made to restore the wall in the Benetúcer irrigation channel
This project involves the enhancement of a space of 1,350 m2, including 200 meters of route and 50 linear meters of intact medieval wall, barbican and rampart. In addition, it contemplates the recovery of the remains of the Muslim cemetery that rest on the ground floor of the Almudaina building, among which are several unique Islamic pantheons, only comparable in the municipality to the tomb of Ibn Mardanis, the Wolf King, in San Juan de God. To connect all the exhibition spaces, it is enough to dig a few meters into the basement of the square, between the current Visitor Center, which will act as an articulator of the environment, and the basement of the Almudaina.
The deputy mayor announces that they will denounce the CHS plans on flooding “because we don’t know where they got them from”
If despite this step, it is still not known when the works related to this historic complex of Santa Eulalia could be tendered, it does not seem easy to guess when the new bridge that should connect El Raal with Beniel could be ready. This infrastructure, whose design was recently entrusted to the Urbanizadora Municipal (Urbamusa) by the Governing Board of the Consistory, will come to replace the passage that collapsed last year when a concrete mixer crossed it.
Given that the deadlines to undertake the project are long –at least one year, since it will be necessary to have the mandatory permits from the Segura Hydrographic Confederation (CHS)–, the Popular Group raised the possibility yesterday, through a motion in plenary, to build a pedestrian walkway that provides service to the residents, who must walk four kilometers to cover a route that they previously covered in just 200 meters. According to the popular councilor Marco Antonio Fernández, it may be a “simpler and faster solution and it would be compatible with the later execution of a bridge for road traffic”. However, the proposal barely got the support of Vox, since the government and Podemos groups consider that the times would not differ much between the two options and would increase spending.
“We can’t close our eyes”
The CHS is also involved in the controversy over the “paralysis of licenses” denounced by the construction sector as a result of the new mapping of the basin organization on areas of high flooding. The Corporation rejected in yesterday’s plenary session – with the votes of PSOE, Cs and Podemos – to support the declaration made this month by the business associations and professional associations affected. The popular Antonio Navarro defended this non-application due to the processing errors in the CHS cartography and the important errors they contain. “The water in Juan Carlos I, with the 2019 DANA, did not have a draft of even one meter and, according to the plans, it is included within the so-called possible zones,” he added. The Town Planning councilor stressed that “we cannot close our eyes to the law.” “In several weeks we will solve 80% of the problem with the requested declaration of flooding, but, in addition, we are going to denounce those plans that we do not know where they have been taken from,” Gómez concluded.
In relation to the channels, almost all the groups, except Podemos -which abstained-, supported a motion to articulate an agreement with the Board of Landowners by which the walls of the Benetúcer ditch, which irrigates the districts of Puente Tocinos, Llano de Brujas and Santa Cruz. “We could generate a green path, always following criteria of respect for the environment,” concluded Navarro.