Benidorm accepts the delegation of powers of Education to process the reform of Ausiàs March public school

The plenary session of Benidorm City Council has unanimously approved this Monday the acceptance of the delegation of powers by the Ministry of Education to the City Council itself for the execution of the project of “Structural reinforcement, improvement of the envelope, improvement of energy efficiency, adaptation of accessibility, evacuation, facilities and common areas and others in the CEIP Ausiàs March”, which has a budget of nearly 2.1 million euros. The Councilor for Education, Maite Moreno, has recalled that this project is one of the twenty actions that Benidorm transferred “to the previous regional Administration, governed by PSOE and Compromís”, works that “despite being committed, were never attended to and that the Botànic partners left without effect a few days before the municipal and regional elections of 2023”.

Moreno has pointed out that, together with the IES Pere Maria Orts i Bosch, this is “the first of the projects that are going to be executed thanks to the change of government in the Generalitat”, after which she has pointed out that “in these 16 months –since said change– we are obtaining fruits for the work that is being carried out to unblock all the educational projects that were left pending” from the previous stage, trusting that “after this one, many others will come”.

Likewise, the councillor has explained that, with the acceptance of these delegations in the plenary session this Monday, “we continue to advance” in the execution of these projects through the Edificant Plan, and that the next steps by the City Council will be “the tendering of the execution project and the works themselves”, a reform “highly demanded by the educational community of Ausiàs March and that we have finally managed to unblock”.

The plenary session also unanimously approved two motions from the Board of Spokespersons relating to the ‘Ciudad de Benidorm’ Tourism Awards and the ‘Ciutat de Benidorm’ Cultural Distinction, which will be presented on 9 October. The first motion agreed to award the distinction to the Prado Museum, the businessman José Luis Yzuel, the businessman Miguel Ángel Sotillos and Bowling Benidorm in the international, national, regional and local categories respectively. Likewise, it was also agreed to award the Special Mention of these awards to the hotel entrepreneur José María Caballé, founder of the Servigroup chain. All these recognitions were presented last Friday, 27 September, at an event held in the municipal Assembly Hall on the occasion of World Tourism Day.

The second motion establishes the award of this year's Distinció Cultural 'Ciutat de Benidorm', which will be presented at the institutional plenary session on 9 October, to Juan Antonio Espinosa, professor of piano at the Professional Conservatory 'Guitarrista José Tomás' in Alicante, orchestra teacher at the Professional Music Centre 'Vila de Sant Joan' and artistic director of the Musical Society 'La Paz' in Sant Joan d'Alacant. The City Council awards this distinction to those natural or legal persons who have proven outstanding activity in the field of artistic creation, the promotion and encouragement of Valencian, the preservation of local traditions and, in general, of Valencian traditions, as well as patronage and high cultural management and dissemination.

Likewise, the plenary unanimously approved the proposal of the Councillor for Festivals, Mariló Cebreros, to set the days 10 and 11 November 2025 corresponding to the Festes Majors Patronals as local holidays in the next working calendar, since both days are consecutive to the second Sunday of November of that year.

In terms of urban planning, the declaration of the expiration of the procedure for resolution by mutual agreement of the Integrated Action Programme (PAI) for the development of the APR-3 ‘Tertiary Corridor’ sector was approved and awarded in January 2001, due to the expiration of the legal period of three months for its processing.

Lourdes Caselles, Councillor for Urban Planning, explained that when the technical alternative presented by the owners was approved in 2001 “the urban development agreement was not signed”, so, as she indicated, “there is no breach by the owners of the sector”. “This is a sector in which no activity is being carried out and no urbanisation is to be carried out and if the two lanes of traffic were to be split as provided for in the 1990 PGOU, a façade would remain which would make any development unviable” he added.

With the approval of this point, it has also been agreed to start the processing of the resolution file again by mutual agreement, declaring the conservation of the actions and administrative procedures carried out, whose content remains identical, regardless of the expiry noted in the file. The approved matter also entails the resolution by mutual agreement of the PAI and the authorisation of the return of the guarantee presented, as well as publishing the deprogramming of the land in the DOGV. “In reality” Caselles concluded, “it is a renunciation by the owners to continue with the programming of the land and its development”.

The Treasury has also approved by the majority of the government's votes a modification of the Fiscal Ordinance number 17 regulating the rate for the collection and treatment of Urban Solid Waste to adapt the housing tariff table to law 7/2022. The councillor for Finance, Aida García Mayor, has explained that corrective coefficients have been applied to each area of ​​the municipal area. "All the criteria allow to differentiate objective quotas to comply with the state law, which in turn is marked by the European directive that brings with it this modification" she pointed out. García Mayor has specified that in Benidorm there are "about 55,000 homes for which the bill will be slightly lowered and about 4,000 for which it will be increased".

The councillor has specified that "it is an exclusively technical proposal to comply with the state law and it is mandatory for all municipalities in Spain". The rubbish bill for citizens will range between 189 and 217.50 euros depending on the area in which they live. Aida García, finally, has recalled that the European Union wants each citizen to “pay for the waste they generate, but that is currently impossible” and that is why it is done this way. “In the future, we understand that it will be possible and that those who recycle and generate less waste will be rewarded.”

New Assessment of Job Positions for the Local Police

Today's session also saw the majority approval of the Job Evaluation (VPT) of the Local Police and a series of modifications to the Job List (RPT) in force at the City Council that will have economic effects as of tomorrow, October 1. A proposal, said the Councillor for Public Security, Jesús Carrobles, indicated that it is "a proposal agreed with the unions with which the operational problems that have arisen with the new work formulas and the new regulations are solved". The Local Police represents around 30% of the municipal workforce "and requires efficient and agile procedures to guarantee citizen security".

Carrobles has advanced that the objective of the proposal is "to optimise the available resources to have more effective personnel and provide the best service" and specified that the mobility of the agents, and the coverage of absences due to illness or holidays will be improved. “Vacancies can be covered by the mobility of police officers from different groups, the coverage of vacancies can be improved, the existing problem with the updating of payrolls can be avoided, there will be more police officers on the street on the night and late-night shifts. In short, we will be able to carry out work with greater efficiency and quality so that citizens and tourists maintain equally high levels of perception of security” added the councillor.

Another of the issues that has been approved unanimously by the entire Corporation has been the approval of the Municipal Action Plan against seismic risk in Benidorm (PAMSIS), a plan drawn up by technicians from the municipal areas of Architecture, Engineering, Citizen Security and Emergencies, and which aims to be able to “respond to situations of serious collective risk, catastrophes or public calamity” in the hypothetical case of an earthquake in the city. The Councillor for Public Security, Jesús Carrobles, explained that this plan is developed within the scope of the Municipal Territorial Plan for Emergencies (PTM) approved in 2007, a living document for which the legislation on this matter in the Valencian Community “obliges the periodic review of this plan every six years”.

Carrobles also pointed out that “earthquakes can represent a significant risk for our community, so it is crucial to establish a seismic emergency plan to mitigate the effects of a possible earthquake and ensure a rapid and effective response”. The approval of this plan makes Benidorm one of the first municipalities with a specific action protocol in this matter.

The plenary session also unanimously agreed to transfer 191 metres of low-voltage overhead line and 72 metres of low-voltage underground line to Redes Eléctricas Inteligentes for the supply of electricity to the extension of San Jaime Cemetery.

Political Motions

In political terms, the local government of the Popular Party has pushed through, with the abstention of Vox and the vote against the PSOE, a motion to demand from the central Government a fair and supportive financing system against the “separatism that puts Catalonia above the rest of the communities” and “with the Socialist Party as an ally”. Specifically, the motion defended by the PP spokesperson, Lourdes Caselles, demanded issues such as “paralysing any progress towards the fiscal independence requested by the separatists and demanding guarantees that no community in the current common regime system leaves it or the Tax Agency is fragmented”, “urgently calling the Conference of Regional Presidents, to recover the minimum bases of consensus to address the renewal of the current regional financing system”, or “facilitating the autonomous communities to have the 18,000 million euros of Next Generation funds that the Government has not executed, to avoid their return to the EU”, among others.

On the contrary, the plenary session has rejected a motion presented by the PSOE to “demand that the Ministry of Education comply with its commitments made to Benidorm City Council by immediately resuming the process paralyzed in May 2023 by decision of the previous general director of Infrastructure” of the Botànic government, as well as “urging the mayor to take the appropriate steps” to do so. The proposal has been rejected by a large majority of the Corporation, with the votes in favour of the eight socialist councillors against the 17 against the PP and Vox, whose spokesmen have reproached that the paralysis of the Benidorm Edificant Plan “was the responsibility of the previous PSOE and Compromís government”. The Councillor for Education, Maite Moreno, has regretted that the socialists of Benidorm, “after eight years of silence, are late with this motion, given that the current government of Carlos Mazón and the councillor Rovira is the one who is taking measures to solve the disaster that the Botànic left in our city” in terms of education, Maite Moreno has expressed, also giving as an example the unblocking of works such as the IES Pere Maria or the CEIP Ausiàs March.

Another of the political motions that has not prospered has been the one presented by the municipal group of Vox for the transfer and reception of illegal immigrants outside of Spain. It has received the vote against the PP and PSOE, compared to the only favourable vote of the spokesperson of Vox.

The session ended with the giving of an account of three judicial matters related to the APR7 of Serra Gelada. The first of them, is from the TSJCV order, dated 09/12/2029, regarding the appeal for cassation filed by the City Council before the Supreme Court; the other two, about two rulings of the Administrative Litigation Court number 1 of Alicante where the appeals against the plenary agreements of November 28, 2022, and February 27, 2023, are dismissed, declaring the nullity of the urban acts and agreements related to the APR7.