Benidorm City Council has approved the contract for the second phase of the renovation of the public lighting and the existing catenary on the Paseo de Levante, worth 1,099,383.35 euros, VAT included, and which the Council will execute through the Sustainable Tourism Plan in Destination 'Benidorm Vision 360', financed with European Next Generation funds. The mayor of the city, Toni Pérez, has stated that "once the contract has been approved by the local Government Board, we will begin the administrative process to tender and award the work as soon as possible and so that this second phase will become a reality very soon."
Pérez recalled that this second phase of the catenary renovation covers the section between Avenida de Europa –as far as the first phase, completed in the first half of last year, reached– and Calle Metge Miguel Martorell, so that “we are once again fulfilling the commitments of this government team with our city and our citizens, in the face of the omission of responsibilities by the State, which is the one who, by competences, should carry out the work”.
The contract for the works to renew this section of the emblematic Levante garland and all its infrastructure will be awarded through an ordinary and open procedure, as stated in the legislation and the document approved this Monday. It establishes a period of execution of eight months, from the signing of the staking out report, to carry out the works, so “the forecast is that they will be completed, almost certainly, throughout the second half of 2025”, Pérez added.
The mayor recalled that the public lighting installations and the existing catenary on the Paseo de Levante “were carried out in the 1990s, within the scope of the construction works for the Paseo Marítimo de la Playa de Levante, through a tender instrumented at the time by the Ministry of Public Works, Transport and the Environment”.
Three decades later, “and given the need to renew the entire infrastructure both due to the passage of time and to adapt it to more modern technologies and with greater energy efficiency”, Toni Pérez recalled, the Council carried out the works of the first phase project, in the section from Plaza del Torrejó to Avenida de Europa, with an investment of 1,972,119.41 euros financed entirely with municipal resources and with which a reduction in energy power of more than 33.65% has been obtained. “Not only have we managed to be more efficient and significantly reduce CO2 emissions, but this project has also earned our city awards and recognition for its sustainability, such as the one we recently received in Madrid from the EnerTic platform,” Pérez added.
The mayor also recalled that, “given the will and commitment to continue moving forward in the modernisation of this infrastructure, which is an icon of our city”, the drafting of the project for this second phase was commissioned to the company Guía Consultores, SLP, which was delivered on 30 September, and that, after its approval by the Local Government Board, “we are now taking a further step in the administrative procedure, which is the start of the contracting file to award the effective execution of the works”.
Finally, Toni Pérez regretted that, “as has already occurred with many other infrastructures, such as the first phase itself, the accesses to the tertiary sector or the so-called second phase of Poniente, this work should be financed and executed by the State, but what we have found is a new omission of its responsibility, in what is probably the only municipality with a seafront promenade in Spain where the Ministry does not fulfil its competence and responsibility”. Faced with this absence, "what we have done is pay for it ourselves, the people of Benidorm pay for it, all of us residents pay for it, because the City Council understands that this is what Benidorm deserves."