Benidorm and the Generalitat expedite the procedures for the tender for the works of the IES Pere Maria Orts

Benidorm City Council and the Generalitat Valenciana have taken a giant step this Tuesday to facilitate the bidding for the works of Pere Maria Orts i Bosch High School to resume and complete the project, after years of paralysis. The city's mayor, Toni Pérez, has met in Valencia with the Minister of Education, José Antonio Rovira. The councillor for the department, Maite Moreno, and the general director of Educational Infrastructure, Rafael Valcárcel, also participated in this meeting, in what the mayor described as “an alliance to accelerate this process as much as possible, with all the speed that allows” a project and an administrative procedure of this type.”

The councillor explained that the City Council has already received the final project drawn up by the Department of Education to complete these works and has advanced that, after the municipal technical reports, the document will be included in the agenda of the next Urban Planning information commission, which will be held on Monday, for the subsequent approval by the Local Government Board.

Likewise, Toni Pérez has explained that the approval of this project for the construction license will pave the way for the tender, which the Minister of Education announced last November would take place in 2024.

“Our commitment has always been to continue taking the steps towards bidding, awarding and starting these long-awaited works in 2024, as we are doing,” stated the mayor, who also highlighted that these works “will culminate with the opening of a new updated Pere Maria Orts i Bosch institute and with many more offices and facilities than those intended in the first phase which, as everyone knows, ended with bankruptcy proceedings by the winning company and which now "We resumed with greater extension and a large budget, close to 14.5 million euros, by what this centre already deserves."

The IES Pere Maria Orts i Bosch was built at the end of the 70s and was the first public secondary school in the municipality. After various minor works and renovations, in 2009 an ambitious expansion and renovation project began to practically double the capacity of that original building, a project that was paralyzed due to numerous problems with the successful bidder and that, after many years of waiting, it will be possible to resume in a concise space of time, as the mayor has recalled.

At the end of last November, the Minister of Education, José Antonio Rovira, travelled to Benidorm to visit this educational centre accompanied by Toni Pérez and the councillor of Education; the director of the IES, Nacho Gascón López; and other positions of the Ministry, to know first-hand its status. Then, Rovira has already announced the Consell's commitment to resume these works during the first months of 2024, after "eight years of abandonment and unfulfilled promises with different deadlines by the previous government of Ximo Puig."

According to the data provided by the Education Department, the project to complete the works on this building will have an approximate cost of around 14 million euros, including the demolition of part of the old building, currently unused and whose structure is damaged. In addition, the construction of a new classroom, the renovation and repair of elements with deficiencies, as well as other actions to improve the patio, fencing and other common areas, some of them at the request of the school community, are also planned.