City Council and Consell have been working “from minute one” to address the completion of the Cultural Center

Benidorm City Council and the Generalitat Valenciana have been working “from minute one” to address the completion of the Cultural Center, an infrastructure “that is a priority for President Carlos Mazón and Councilor Nuria Montes” and in which the two administrations “work together” with the common goal that the works can be resumed very soon." This was stated this Wednesday by the mayor of the city, Toni Pérez, who also announced that the second phase of this project “will be a reality in the shortest possible time” and that “the Consell governed by Carlos Mazón has shown its absolute priority in this infrastructure, materializing that will, among other actions, in holding a meeting on May 3 at the City Hall itself with the architecture studio of Juan Navarro Baldeweg, as well as monitoring the status of the project and the existing infrastructure.

The first mayor has appeared publicly to explain all the efforts that have been carried out in recent months with the autonomous Administration aimed after this cultural space, after the municipal socialist group, together with the regional deputy of the PSPV José Chulvi , visited the building yesterday to demand its completion. As the local government spokesperson, Lourdes Caselles, did yesterday, Toni Pérez congratulated herself that “Cristina Escoda has now found out, on July 9, that there is a Cultural Center about which she did not say anything for eight years of the government of the Botànic”.

“Not even a year has passed since the formation of the new Council,” said the first mayor, who also highlighted that “Nuria Montes, since she took office as Minister of Innovation, Industry, Commerce and Tourism of the Generalitat –, she has been very concerned about what for her, for the government of Carlos Mazón, is a priority”, about this infrastructure. Thus, Pérez has revealed that since the current general director of the Thematic Projects Society of the Valencian Community (SPTCV), Fermín Crespo, took office on September 18, “very intense work is being done between the Benidorm City Council and the Generalitat, because it was something that we also demanded, although without a response or solution, from the previous government chaired by Ximo Puig.”

Since that date, and after negotiations and meetings between technical staff, Pérez has reported that the councillor Nuria Montes visited the Cultural Center in person on April 22 and as a result of that visit the councillor herself facilitated a meeting of all parties with the team. of architects from Navarro Baldeweg "to talk about the situation, what remains to be addressed at the Cultural Center and how to address it", a meeting that took place on May 3 at the Benidorm City Hall and on which work continues today. "We have never been asked about all of this and I am now giving the data because we have never been asked about it and because we understand that there is a policy far from the headlines, from falsehoods, from 'fake news' and from inventions to alarm to society,” Pérez reproached the PSOE.

Likewise, the mayor has highlighted that the objective of all this work is "to provide solutions for financing and to prioritize the completion of the Benidorm Cultural Center, far from the photos and promises of the previous stage" and has recalled "the multiple non-compliance” by the Botànic government in the first phase of the works, such as the completion of the Europa Avenue façade, and “the list of corrections” that they promised to execute but did not do.

“They say that the government of Puig committed 35 million euros, where?” asked Pérez, who pointed out that “Mrs Escoda and Mr Castillo must have forgotten, but Mr Chulvi must know that the budget of 2023 was made by the Socialist Party and there was no financial commitment, I don't know who told you about the 35 million euros.” "I want to think that Chulvi, because of his experience, perhaps yesterday he was deceived by bringing him to Benidorm - he continued -because surely his party colleagues who have requested your presence have not told you the truth of things." After that, the first mayor offered the socialist deputy the information he needed on the subject. “If Chulvi is interested in knowing details of this infrastructure, he is invited to come whenever he wants. We will not deceive him like his party colleagues,” he added.

Likewise, Toni Pérez has recalled that it was the City Council that made it possible to divide this project into phases "when the Generalitat of Ximo Puig told us that it did not have the money to finish the work" and agreed to reduce the cost to 12.7 million euros. investment to finish 25% of the building “so that he could later sell public land in Terra Mítica worth 24 million, of which he did not invest a single euro in the city.” And, as the spokesperson also advanced yesterday, the mayor has insisted that "Benidorm has had to assume the 4 million euros of VAT that initially did not correspond to it, in addition to a fortune in furniture and having to provide a million euros for fix the stage box” which the auditorium also lacks.

“There was a time between 2010 and 2015 when the City Council, then of the PSOE, and the Generalitat, then of the PP, did not agree on the municipal position. And from year 15 onwards we changed the municipal position, although it would have been easier for us to adopt the position of the previous ones: attacking a government of the Generalitat rather than providing solutions to a problem that Benidorm had”, concluded Pérez, recalling Furthermore, “the government of which Mrs. Escoda was a part even said about putting a supermarket there and exchanging violins for cucumbers. This is reality and reality cannot be moulded to suit it,” he concluded.