Without a public pool in the neighborhood one year in and the next: why do the works take forever?

The first thing the residents of the La Paz neighborhood, in the Madrid district of Fuencarral-El Pardo, noticed was that the water in the outdoor pool was very cold. Much more than usual. It was the summer season of 2021, the year in which the second most intense heat wave to date was recorded in Spain, and all the extra cool was welcome. Even so, they found it strange and decided to ask the facility staff. It turns out that there were leaks, the water was not recirculating as it should and new water kept coming in from the canal, which is why it did not heat up. That was the last summer that the Vicente del Bosque pool was open. Since then, two years and seven months ago, the 32,192 inhabitants of the area They are waiting for the works to begin.

Every summer, when the season start date approaches, Madrid’s public pools make headlines like: “Delay in construction leaves neighbors without pools”; “summer in Madrid with the pools closed or with unfinished works”; “another summer without a pool in [barrio]”. And, the most common: “These are the municipal pools that are going to close in the summer.”

The list changes, although there are facilities, both outdoors and indoors, that remain there for several years – or come and go intermittently – before moving on to reopened venues. The neighbors criticize the negligence and lack of planning on the part of the Administration and the City Council justifies the long times because these are comprehensive and complex reforms.

“It is a structural story that occurs in many municipal sports centers in Madrid. Many were made in the 1980s and 1990s. [otros se remontan a los sesenta]. They are already more than 40 years old and need maintenance which, in light of the problems that arise [en referencia a las fugas en muchos de ellos], has not been adequate. We wait until the point where the works are titanic,” explains Óscar Chacón, from the La Flor neighborhood association and resident of the La Paz neighborhood, by phone.

In the eighties there were 14 municipal outdoor swimming pools in the capital. In 2023 nine more, 23, and this year the first one will be inaugurated ―located in Barajas, until now without a summer pool― since 1992. The last one that was built, more than 32 years ago, was Palomeras, in the district of Vallecas Bridge. The indoor pool of that sports center was also the cause of protests for remaining closed for two years due to the works and for prolonging the closure once they were finished. Almost three kilometers away is the Vallecas outdoor pool, one of those that will not open this summer due to a comprehensive renovation in phases that began in 2021.

A spokesperson for the City Council, asked why many of the swimming pool renovation works take so long, indicates that “it depends on the case”: “If it is about comprehensive renovations, the works are long. Furthermore, in the case of summer swimming pools, these works have a handicap that increases their complexity, which is inclement weather, mainly rain, which usually generates unforeseen events.”

A year after the closure of the Vicente del Bosque pool, “absolutely nothing had moved. No project, no budget, no anything. Neither for the year 2022, nor for the year 2023,” denounces Chacón. The City Council confirms that the works have not started and that “the drafting of the project has not yet been completed”, although they do point out that “a comprehensive reform of the sports center will be carried out in phases that will be developed throughout this mandate ”. For now, this is the third summer that residents will have to go to another municipal pool between May and September.

Noelia Buesa, technical architect, has been in the pool construction sector in Madrid for a decade and has specialized in project drafting for the last two years. In her case, she works with communities of neighbors and individuals: “I have never faced such a large project, but when these pharaonic works are undertaken, the installation is already obsolete or the vessels may have considerable water leaks.”

With leaks in the vessels, he explains, the water losses should be replaced daily, otherwise the circuit in the pool does not work, and that represents a large waste of water. “To fix it you have to build a new glass. The usual thing is to demolish the perimeter of the basin and build a new one inside the one that already existed, thus saving the earthworks phase,” he indicates.

According to the surveyor, writing a project of that magnitude “can take up to a year, especially if it includes the adjacent building. A reform of just the glasses can be a six-month draft.” Once the project and the execution budget have been prepared, the tender is put out for a company to execute the works: “Speaking of works of one or two million euros, it can be extended for another six months, and then another year to execute them.” .

Projects that do not arrive

The last swimming pool to join the list of “closed due to leaks” is that of Peñuelas, in the district of Arganzuela (153,000 inhabitants), one of the most popular in the capital as it also welcomes the residents of the center (another 139,682), where there are no outdoor bathing spaces. The reason for the closure, explained this Wednesday by the delegate of Public Works and Equipment, Paloma García Romero, is that the facilities “present very serious pathologies that require immediate intervention.”

Among them, the purification and control facilities are obsolete, constant water losses in the vessels, collapsed retaining walls with moisture and cracks. The execution period, he added, is 12 months, although they have not yet finished writing the project.

The neighbors – who gathered a week ago in front of the facilities – fear that the same thing will happen as with the Vicente del Bosque facility, also closed due to leaks, and the phase prior to the works will last for several seasons. Something similar to what was experienced by the users of the El Quijote sports center, formerly Francos Rodríguez. In 2019, the summer swims ended early due to a falling tree. Then they also detected problems in the facilities and the pool closed.

In 2020 it remained closed, like the rest, due to the pandemic, and in 2021 the neighbors began to mobilize and demand that repairs begin. The pool reopened last summer, almost four years after it closed, although neighbors report that there are still areas, such as a promised bar, that are still under construction and have not been built.

“It is neglect, lack of planning and not addressing the needs of the neighborhoods. Those who suffer from it are the users and more so in these summers, when it is terribly hot and people do not have a place where they can take a bath,” complains Maricarmen Lostal, from the Villa Rosa neighborhood association, in the Hortaleza district.

The district’s two pools are listed as intermittently closed facilities. That of Luis Aragonés was in 2022 due to the damage caused by the storm Filomena and it will be again this year, due to new works on one of the vessels. The other, the Hortaleza sports center, closed all last summer due to renovations that were prolonged.

Sonia San Andrés, also a resident of the area and of the La Unión Hortaleza association, denounces the lack of communication and transparency of the City Council. The neighbors, he says, have found out about the successive closures through the media: “They use Twitter and publish the works for street conditioning, for cutting trees, or announce that the councilor is inaugurating an award, but these things do not warn. Many times people come across the news when they go to ask for their ticket.”

One of the neighborhoods that first suffered this problem and that had to wait the longest for works was La Concepción, in the Ciudad Lineal district, where there is a single swimming pool, named the same as the neighborhood, for 220,345 people. Their fight came to seem eternal. In 2008 the sports venue closed due to a collapse and during the renovations there were leaks that led to its closure one summer, another and another. The closure lasted seven years.

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