Escoda: “The second phase of the Cultural Center is the great lie of Mayor Toni Pérez in this legislature”

The councillors of the socialist municipal group together with the provincial deputy Vicente Arques have travelled today to the Cultural Centre of Benidorm to denounce the “paralysis” of the government of the Generalitat Valenciana of Mazón and the refusal of the government of the Popular Party of the Provincial Council of Alicante to participate in the financing of the works of this municipal infrastructure. The socialist spokesperson, Cristina Escoda, has highlighted that the second phase of the Cultural Centre is “the great scam and the great lie of the mayor of the city Toni Pérez in this legislature”, and has criticised the recent visit to the facilities of the Cultural Centre of the new Minister of Tourism, Marián Cano, to “not announce anything and to confirm that the headlines given six months ago by Mrs Montes were pure smoke”.

In this regard, Escoda recalled that in July 2024 after a complaint from the PSOE, with the visit of the socialist regional deputy José Chulvi to the city, the councillor Núria Montes announced with great fanfare that the Executive Commission of the Society of Projects for Digital Transformation was going to approve the tender for the drafting of the second and final phase of the Benidorm Cultural Center for an amount of 932,075 euros and a period of six months. “They brought the councillor a few weeks ago, apparently deceived, to cover up the file and sell us that they were moving forward when in reality they have done nothing. Those six months have passed and nothing is known about the tender or the new project and even less about the possible start of the works,” he said.

However, the socialist leader Escoda has regretted that the mayor Toni Pérez has forgotten everything that she vehemently demanded from the socialist Council and has demanded that he take the second phase of the Cultural Centre seriously so that it becomes a reality as soon as possible. “We wonder where those challenges Mr Pérez launched by giving Ximo Puig three-month deadlines to sign the protocols and agreements necessary to finish the Cultural Centre are. Now he is no longer in such a hurry. He fills his mouth saying that they have been working from minute one and that it is a priority objective but the reality is that they are not doing anything”, he stressed.

For his part, Vicente Arques has explained that the Popular Party in the Provincial Council, with its president and mayor of Benidorm Antonio Pérez at the helm, rejected four major amendments valued at more than 7 million euros of investment for the city during the debate on the provincial budgets for 2025 last December. Arques has explained that Toni Pérez rejected, as proposed by the socialist ranks, allocating a budget for the execution of the second phase of the Cultural Centre; for the remodelling of the Bullring; for a new sports pavilion and to subsidise the 700th anniversary of the Carta de Poblament. “The president of the Provincial Council and mayor of Benidorm voted against his own municipality by rejecting our proposals”, he stated.