Benidorm extends the renaturalization of public spaces to Miguel Martorell Street

Benidorm City Council has begun a new phase of its project to renaturalize municipal public spaces. While previous interventions have focused on several schools, a pilot project has now begun on Miguel Martorell Street in the Levante area, also funded by the Biodiversity Foundation.

Both the renaturalization efforts in school playgrounds and this newly launched street project are part of the ‘Benidorm Green and Water’ initiative, supported by the Biodiversity Foundation of the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO) within the framework of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (PRTR), funded by the European Union.

– Next GenerationEU. 

In this case, the project involves creating several micro-parks on both sides of the street, occupying part of the roadway. These are installed on a structural surface to allow pedestrian access. They are called rain gardens because rainwater is collected and drained, serving as irrigation for the plants growing on the surface. The plant species to be planted will be Mediterranean and resistant to the sea salt.

Furthermore, these new spaces will be equipped with a drip irrigation system.

The mayor of Benidorm, Toni Pérez, who visited the site where the project has been underway for several days, indicated that one of the objectives of this intervention is "to continue advancing the integration of the street and garden into the landscape." Pérez specified that this initial project is a pilot program, "and if it works as we expect, we will also apply it to other urban spaces." The project is expected to take approximately two weeks to complete, so it will be finished during the Christmas holidays.

The work complements projects already carried out in several primary schools in the city, such as Leonor Canalejas, Miguel Hernández, and Gabriel Miró, among others. In this regard, the mayor emphasized the city's "firm commitment" to implementing these types of initiatives in the rest of the municipality's schools because "it is one of the most effective strategies for improving children's well-being, promoting environmental education, and adapting urban environments to climate change through the planting of various shade trees and aromatic shrubs to raise environmental awareness among students."

The City Council, the mayor stated, aims to "implement a program for the renaturalization of playgrounds and other spaces with funding and technical advice that involves architects, landscape designers, and local associations." As mentioned, the Biodiversity Foundation will fund this project, allocating approximately €150,000 for this purpose.

Toni Pérez highlighted that "the European Union aims to bring the population closer to nature, to more pleasant and healthy areas, and this is a project that contributes to that."