Por Redaccion 
The City Council of Citizen Participation and Sports has made the park of La Paz, in the neighborhood of Las Delicias, «accessible» with a ramp on the stage that now allows for a view of the stage.
According to a statement from the City Council, as reported by Europa Press, the «poor» planning of the previous government has cost the municipal coffers almost 35,000 euros more in this execution in order to meet the demands of the residents, which «could have been resolved from the very beginning» if they had been involved in developing a participatory budget.
In this regard, the Councilor for Citizen Participation and Sports, Mayte Martínez, explained that «this fact once again confirms that the current government team does believe in participatory budgets and strives every day to solve the problems of investment projects resulting from all the processes held to date, which were left unexecuted or without budget allocation for the future by the previous government team.»
The origins of this work stem from a participatory budget called ‘Provision of audiovisual equipment and a ramp on the stage of La Paz park’, which initially had a budget of 14,847 euros, aiming to «facilitate access to the park stage.»
However, according to the City Council, the inclusion in the participatory budgets of the 2021-2022 process, which has undergone changes and fluctuations over several years, led to the installation of a ramp that did not convince the residents of the Las Delicias neighborhood, as the choice of its location «did not please at all» because a rail, of «considerable» height, limited the view towards the stage and affected both the public and the performances taking place there.
Furthermore, according to the City Council, it turned out that the previous government team «had not budgeted for this intervention and had to be addressed from the ordinary budget of 2023.»
«It seems that the government team leaving office on May 22, 2023, rushed to award the work on June 6 of that year for an amount of 17,251 euros; all this not without vicissitudes given that they had not anticipated that the structure was to be superimposed and required fabrication in a workshop. Well, the installation of the non-conforming ramp was received on January 17, 2024, and it was not until this moment that the contracted absurdity could be verified,» criticized the councilor.
Additionally, she added that «since this date, this government team has had to seek solutions, never easy, to alleviate the displeasure of the residents with a ramp that obstructed the view of the stage and led to additional expenses.»
SOLUTION TO THE «MISTAKE»
To find the best solution to the «mistake,» contact was made with the two neighborhood associations in the area, and the one that showed interest was the Delicias Family Association, with which the preference for the new location of the ramp was agreed upon.
Once the new project was contracted and developed, and its technical direction was carried out according to the preferences of the Delicias Family Association, the execution of the ramp relocation was contracted, and credit was generated, which was not available to cover the new expenses, with a base budget of 14,244 euros (VAT included), plus auxiliary contracts.
From this point on, five consecutive tenders were carried out, which were declared void as no bids were submitted or those submitted did not meet the tender conditions.
Subsequently, the construction plan was modified and the budget was increased to 28,337 euros (VAT included), and the work was finally awarded to the company ‘Red Arquitectura Interiorismo S.L’ for an amount of 26,333 euros (VAT included), a budget that was increased by 8,363 euros for the necessary auxiliary contracts.