The Minister of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory, Ángel Víctor Torres, accompanied by the Minister of Science, Innovation and Universities, Diana Morant, met today, in Torrent (Valencia), with the mayors, mayors and technical staff of the municipalities affected by Dana, included in RDL 6/2024, and with representatives of the public company Tragsa to coordinate the Reimpulsa Plan for the recovery of damaged local infrastructures.
The minister said that “it is important to be on the side of local corporations, because they are the closest to neighbors and neighbors.” Torres explained that the Government of Spain “is working on mechanisms that serve to speed up the procedures”, in order to recover normality as soon as possible.
After the announcement of the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, on January 23, when he committed to financing, for the first time and in advance, 100% of the recovery works of the municipal infrastructures, 1,745 million euros have been invested, which, in 40 days, “a record time”, were already in the current accounts of the affected municipalities.
Torres has indicated that “with this unprecedented mobilization” more than 370 interventions will be addressed in different municipal facilities, to which the works in the road network of provincial ownership are added. In total, some 500 interventions will be carried out in municipal facilities,” he added.
The minister has indicated that, for the first time, municipalities will be able to sign an agreement with Tragsa so that it is this public company that awards and executes the works. Tragsa will approve a framework agreement to expedite the procedures, and will open a specific office in Paiporta, aimed at meeting the needs of the municipalities. In addition, each city council will have a single interlocutor who will be responsible for accompanying them in the administrative procedures and to solve all the doubts that may arise.
Torres also explained that “infrastructures can be relocated and added to them technical improvements, with the advice of the Committee of Experts, that increase their resilience against natural phenomena.”
On the deadlines, the regular periods in the different phases of the works have been extended, so that the municipalities have easier to complete them.
At the meeting, which was also attended by the Secretary of State for Territorial Policy, Arcadi Spain; the president of the Intermunicipal Community of L’Horta Sud, Josep Francesc Cabanes; the delegate of the Government, Pilar Bernabé; and the president of Tragsa, Jesús Casas; the minister showed, through an explanatory video, the infrastructures that are going to be recovered in the municipalities. Thus, the planned interventions range from municipal buildings and offices, to health centers, through sports facilities, police stations, children’s schools or cultural centers, among others.
Visit to the auditorium of Catarroja
During the morning, the minister visited, with the mayor of Catarroja, Lorena Silvent, the Francisco Chirivella Auditorium Theater, one of the infrastructures that will be recovered within the reboost plan. This cultural equipment, which was very damaged by the flood, is a space that, until the time of the Dana, was a center of cohesion of the neighbors and neighbors of the municipality.