Since June 2018 "the Police Station has fallen on deaf ears" as no item has been included in the Infrastructure Plan nor has the execution project been put out to tender
Benidorm will once again require the Government to include the construction of the Police Station within the General State Budget for 2023
Benidorm City Council will once again demand from the Government of the nation the construction of the new Police Station of the National Police Corps by allocating a sufficient item in the General State Budgets for the next financial year. The request will be made through the approval of a motion from the local government team that will be submitted to the next plenary session.
The agreement includes the requirement for the Ministry of the Interior to include said budget item so that the works are carried out on the land ceded by the City Council for this purpose "and the budget appropriation to execute it definitively in the coming years" has specified the spokeswoman Lourdes Caselles.
The proposal recalls that the current Apolo XI Street Police Station was built in the 1970s to house 175 police officers. "Currently the staff has a total of 338 members" indicated Caselles, who also stressed that since that investment "`few more have been made in Benidorm to provide new facilities and offer new services to residents and tourists who during the year they visit us”. And all this, "despite the repeated demands and efforts of the City Council, the National Police Corps and Benidorm society."
The motion, which is signed by the two spokespersons of the government team, Lourdes Caselles and Mónica Gómez, details that the City Council has carried out various actions and investments to implement the Foreign Tourist Assistance Service (SATE) with an office in El Torrejó and then in Rincón de Loix "with an investment of more than 240,000 euros executed by the City Council in 2017 and 2018".
The local government's proposal also refers to the steps taken by the Consistory to get the new Police Station. Thus it is recalled that in August 2015 the plenary approved the transfer of a plot of 4,971 square meters in the Salto del Agua and that in January 2017 the Department of Urban Planning began the procedure for drafting the basic document that should collect the needs that had already transferred the General Directorate of the Police for the new infrastructure.
After that date, in March 2017, the transfer of the plot approved in plenary became effective, which was realized in the plenary session of April of that year, in which the socialist group presented a motion, approved unanimously, to demand from the Government of Spain a budget appropriation to build the Police Station.
Subsequently, in May 2018, the Minister of the Interior Juan Ignacio Zoido guaranteed in a visit to Benidorm that the Police Station was "a priority for the Government of Spain" and that its construction would be included in the "First Infrastructure Plan" that was put out to tender. the executive of Mariano Rajoy.
That same month of May, the basic project was sent to the CNP Heritage and Architecture technicians, a project that underwent some subsequent changes at the request of the technicians themselves. "Once modified, the project was sent again without any response to date" lamented the government spokesperson
In this sense, the motion emphasizes that on June 1, 2018, the motion of censure against the government of Mariano Rajoy prospered, with the consequent change in the Presidency of the Government of Spain. “Since then, nothing is known in this City Council about said project, so we can affirm that the Police Station has fallen on deaf ears and that no item has been included in the Infrastructure Plan of the Government of Spain, not even to tender the drafting of the execution project” maintain the spokespersons” Caselles has insisted.
Finally, the proposal to the plenary session affirms that "it is striking" the fact that the Government delegate in the Community, Pilar Bernabé, has announced the start 2023 of the works of the new Denia Police Station since the Ministry of the Interior accepted the transfer of the plot in February of this year, "just six months ago", compared to "the five years and five months that have passed since the Ministry itself received the plot for this purpose in Benidorm".
“In no case are we against towns such as Denia having a new Police Station, but it seems to us an important comparative offence to see how other municipalities see their demands met long before Benidorm, that we have been with this claim for many years, that we ceded the land ago several years and that we adapted the project according to the indications we received, but we are still waiting for a response. It seems that the Government of Spain cares more about the political colour of the municipalities when it comes to making investments” concluded the spokesperson.
