Benidorm opens today the voting period for the proposals submitted to the 2026 Participatory Budget

Benidorm City Council opened the voting period this Thursday for proposals submitted to the 2026 Participatory Budget. This period will run until September 30th and will allow "all residents over the age of 18 registered in the city to vote on their favourite proposals so that together we can make Benidorm even better," said Ana Pellicer, Councillor for Citizen Participation. This year, voting can also be done online, as in previous years, through the platform https://benidorm.governalia.es/es/, as well as in person, with the aim of "providing the greatest number of options possible for citizens to participate and choose what they believe is best for Benidorm." To do so in person, interested parties must go to City Hall or one of the municipal administrative offices and present their ID to verify their information, as a preliminary step to voting.

The councillor explained that this year, "citizens will be able to choose from a total of 56 registered proposals, mostly related to the areas of Urban Planning, Urban Scene, and Mobility," bringing the total to 42. In addition, five more have been registered related to the areas of Tourism, Beaches, and Public Service; six related to Education, Culture, Youth, and Sports; and three related to the Environment and Street Cleaning. All of these proposals can be viewed on the Citizen Participation portal and also at locations designated for in-person voting.

Furthermore, Pellicer reported that "this participatory process, once again, has generated significant interest among Benidorm residents, reaching 576 proposals submitted during the idea presentation phase." These 576 proposals, he added, "were ultimately reduced to 56, as many of the proposals were duplicated or contained similar approaches, so they were summarised to facilitate and make voting more effective, avoiding duplication."

“Since 2016, we have made this powerful tool, the Participatory Budget, available to the public. Through this tool, citizens determine which actions or projects should receive at least 5% of the investment budget,” stated the head of Citizen Participation, who also noted that this initiative “has produced such interesting projects as children's play areas in the parks of l'Aigüera and Elche, the footbridge that connects the Els Tolls neighborhood with the Palau d'Esports, the roundabout on Avenida Ricardo Bayona, the adaptation of the old road workers' house on Via Emilio Ortuño as an exhibition center, the new park located on Avenida Marina Alta, improvements to sports facilities, and the expansion of the swimming channel at Poniente Beach.

Therefore, she encouraged citizens “to be an active part of this process and vote for the proposals they find most interesting among all those presented.”

Once the deadline for submitting proposals has ended, after the vote, a technical committee will be responsible for evaluating and prioritising the actions based on the distributive justice criteria established in the bases of the Self-Regulation of the Participatory Budget 2026. Thus, priority will be given to actions that contribute to meeting the basic needs of the population (water, electricity, security, education, civic coexistence, etc.); that help reduce social inequality (gender, income, ethnicity, or due to physical or mental disability); those that meet environmental sustainability criteria (using nearby, renewable, decentralized, and self-sufficient resources); those that benefit a larger percentage of the population; or those in which no investment has been made before or has not been sufficiently invested.

The proposals will subsequently be subject to a technical and economic feasibility report by the City Council's technical staff, starting with the highest-scoring proposal and up to the maximum authorised spending limit. If any of the proposals is not technically viable, "it will be included in another list and selected." The next most voted on the final list."

Finally, the proposals approved following the Self-Regulations will be submitted to the Mayor's Office for processing, according to the order of priority resulting from the selection process. Those projects that do not require a public tender or specific technical project, or public exhibition will be executed in the budgeted year.