Toni Pérez emphasizes the opportunity that the ‘Next Generation’ represent to develop water improvement projects

The mayor of Benidorm, Toni Pérez, has stressed today "the great opportunity" that the ‘Next Generation’ funds represent to develop water improvement projects. Toni Pérez has transferred this idea within the framework of the Greencities Forum in Malaga, the main national meeting on smart and sustainable cities, and in which he has participated in a roundtable discussion on ‘Smart Water’. A table that he shared with the Councilor for Environmental Sustainability of Malaga City Council, Gemma del Corral, and with the AGBAR legal and business development director, Miguel Ángel Benito, and that was moderated by the vice president of the Smart Cities Commission of Ametic, Emilio Herrera.
Toni Pérez has indicated that the city will opt for the 'Next Generation' through an extraordinary call for Tourism Sustainability Plans, to which Benidorm has presented a project valued at 8 million euros and which includes different actions linked to water management. The mayor has detailed that the project includes "knowing our 'water footprint'" in order, based on this indicator of environmental sustainability, to know the amount of water consumed in the production of consumer goods or during the use of a certain service "and "Continue deepening and advancing in sustainability".
The mayor has indicated that "the public administrations that have the best teams" will have more options when it comes to attracting these funds, as well as those that have "great collaborators" and strategic partners; while he has added that any action that is developed through the Next Generation “has to be part of the city strategy” designed by each territory.
In this regard, the mayor has stressed that Benidorm has a well-defined strategy, with  different plans and projects and in which sustainability plays a leading role. He also recalled that "sustainability was the axis in which Benidorm obtained the highest score in the audits passed" to become the first certified Smart Tourist Destination (DTI) in the world, being the area that has "most developed"; a result in which “water management had a lot to do with it”.
At this point, the mayor has presented Benidorm's experience in water management, and that it has allowed it to have a drinking water network that "currently has a technical performance above 95%, when the national average is 75%. % ". These percentages, according to Toni Pérez, are the result of "raising awareness, sensitization and a lot of investment" and of "giving the water resource the importance it has for human life and activity".
Among the data provided by the mayor to "account for good water management", the reuse of 3 million cubic meters of reclaimed water for street cleaning and garden irrigation, or the reduction in consumption by 20% between 1996 and 2019 despite having increased in that period the population by about 40%; and 25% the number of tourists ”.
During his speech, Toni Pérez stated that Benidorm "has many projects on the table" to further improve water management, and has advanced that "it does not renounce desalination projects to reduce external dependence and have more guarantees to be able to develop our city ​​project ”; a circumstance that would also result in "solidarity" with other territories since "we could release part of the water that we now consume by right". Among the projects for the future, the mayor has also mentioned the materialization of a large floodplain "as a problem solver but creating life and a natural ecosystem of flora and fauna."
Finally, the mayor has stressed that "sustainability" has "a very important value" for a tourist destination "like Benidorm, since" new generations increasingly demand that sustainability be a hallmark of the place where they are going to spend your vacations ”.