The Paleontological Museum of Torre Pacheco is still abandoned ten years later

Ten years have passed since the stoppage of the construction works of the Regional Museum of Paleontology and Human Evolution, which had begun in 2010. A cultural facility that had been raised with enormous ambition and whose headquarters was going to be Torre Pacheco. However, today, only a determined will of the regional and local administrations could unblock, first, the completion of the civil works and, later, the necessary museum adaptation and its endowment to open it to the public in the coming years.

When workers left the building under construction in 2012, only the structure had been completed. No more work was done and the building remains with “closed and protected” accesses, admits the mayor of Torre Pacheco, Antonio León. In this way, it is intended to avoid squatting, acts of vandalism or looting. However, even if someone could enter the imposing building that emerges next to the Cabezo Gordo, “they could not take anything because there is only reinforced concrete,” recalls León.

The first stone of the museum, which the Ministry of Culture had subsidized with eight million euros, was placed in 2010. Technical problems in the execution and disagreements between the successful bidder and the Consistory caused the work to stop just two years later.

failed negotiations

In all this time, the negotiations between the City Council and the Community to resume the project have never come to fruition. Quite the contrary, because the local government is waiting to return the subsidy in “twelve years,” says the councilor. The request was addressed by the City Council to the Ministry of Finance in May 2021 and, according to Antonio León, “the Community has not responded.” The local government insists that the municipal treasury “cannot support all the necessary investment” for the project.