Benidorm prepares a sustainable urban development project to opt for European funds

EDUSI will include improving access to ICT, reducing CO2 emissions, protecting the environment and combating inequality and poverty

It has a month to define the project through citizen participation

The City of Benidorm is preparing the so-called Sustainable and Integrated Urban Development Strategy (EDUSI), a project that allows to choose European Union funds with which to carry out focused actions to improve the city and with it the quality of life of the citizens. Local government spokesman José Ramón González de Zárate explained that Benidorm can present itself this year to the call "because it has already a strategic document: the Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (PMUS)." The PMUS is added the Agenda 21 and the documents prepared to concur to the grant of Red.es program of smart tourist cities. De Zárate has indicated that the call, managed by the Ministry of Finance and Public Administration, reserves for the Valencian Community just over 35 million euros to cofinance through the ERDF funds up to 50% of the cost of the EDUSI actions. These funds will be distributed among the populations of more than 20,000 inhabitants who present the best proposals. The municipal spokesman said that "the City Council is on the starting line" and that "we will do all the work to arrive on time to the call and do it with the best EDUSI possible." Something that believes that will be possible by "the desire to work that have the technicians, the whole corporation and the neighbors, with whom we have already contacted." In this sense, he has detailed that the document must be ready before December 15 and that it has a fundamental role in the contributions of citizens - individual or collective - through participation processes. The main areas of focus of EDUSI are: improvements in the quality and access to information technologies (ICT), reduction of CO2 emissions, environmental protection and resource efficiency, and Such as the fight against inequality and poverty by promoting inclusion policies. For its part, the municipal chief engineer Juan Carlos Sánchez Galiano has remarked that EDUSI "must be an integrative strategy that includes people with lower purchasing power" and that "makes possible a city that meets the needs of everyday life without compromising the Future generations to come. " De Zárate has clarified that at the moment it works to delimit the scope of action of the EDUSI, that is to say, the districts or zones in which the proposed actions would be developed and in evaluating the same ones. However, he added that "the total valuation could be around 8 or 10 million euros", so "could be eligible for grants of 4 or 5 million euros." The time frame for the development of EDUSI's actions is until 2022. In addition to the participation meetings to be held in the coming weeks, the City Council will enable the website www.edusibenidorm.org in which, in addition to access Information on the document can be made suggestions.