March 15, 2024.- The government delegate in Castilla y León, Nicanor Sen, visited this Friday the railway station of La Pola de Gordón that the municipality will turn into a hostel for pilgrims from the Caminos to Santiago thanks to an investment of 549,969.81 euros from the Institute for the Fair Transition (ITJ), an agency dependent on the Ministry for Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge (MITECO).
The mayor of the municipality, Antonio García, has informed the government delegate that the City Council will publish the tender for the rehabilitation works next week with the forecast that the works will begin this spring. Sen has celebrated the imminent execution of this investment that aims to “be one of the basic pillars that allows and contributes to the economic diversification of the municipality, to retain and attract population with projects, such as this, that orient municipal public services towards innovation, support for entrepreneurship, digitalization and protection of the environment”.
This action contemplates the rehabilitation of a unique building, currently in ruins, on the Leon-Gijón railway line, and the urban recovery of the area. In addition, the project will entail the centralization and unification of the necessary services for the pilgrims of the Paths of San Salvador and Oblivion to Santiago. It will also mean the maintenance of a specific space to continue train station functions.
Mining heritage recovery in Ciñera for public use
In addition, the delegate recalled that this is not the only project that the municipality will implement with aid from this agency for the reconversion of mining municipalities, since in the town of Ciñera the social and environmental recovery of sports and sociocultural facilities will be carried out in the former facilities of the Hullera Vasco Leonesa, a project that involves an investment of 1,688,998.63 euros contributed, also 100%, by the Government of Spain through the ITJ and within the framework of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan.
This project also includes the complete recovery of the Emilia Cinema, where the Gordonese Consistory plans to install a geological museum and a sociocultural center, in addition to making improvements to the sports tracks and to enable a motorhome area.
On the other hand, the central government has also injected in this municipality 1,086,725.17 euros for the renovation of the outdoor lighting facilities, a work that the City of La Pola de Gordón has just awarded and that will begin on April 1 with the forecast of being completed in mid-May. This investment is part of the DUS 5000 Program of the Ministry of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory, which aims to give a boost to Sustainable Urban Development in municipalities of demographic challenge through actions that constitute unique clean energy projects.
In addition, this municipality of the central mountain of León is one of the beneficiaries of the subsidies of the Plan of Recovery, Transformation and Resilience to the reserves of the biosphere of Castilla y León. In particular, training and tourism promotion actions are planned in the amount of 299,942 euros.
In this way, the investment of the Government of Spain in this municipality exceeds 3.6 million euros.