After nine years of closure and a multitude of problems and delays, the work of the new access stairway to Los Patos beach, in La Orotava, is back on track, with the hope that the tenth summer in a row will not be fulfilled with the largest beach in the municipality officially closed. The Cabildo de Tenerife has joined the solution of the problem with the contribution of a subsidy of 300,000 euros to the El Rincón Consortium, which is the body in charge of executing this work, budgeted in 609,176 euros, almost six times what it was thought it would cost in 2014.
The last delay in this action occurred after the resignation of the company that had awarded the work, which forced the El Rincón Consortium to reach a new agreement with one of the subcontractors of the action, who is the new person in charge of the works. According Gesplan, which is entrusted to the optional management, now “the execution deadlines are being met.”
The mayor of Urbanism of the City of La Orotava, Narciso Pérez (CC), prefers to be cautious, but recognizes that despite the difficulties involved in a work of these characteristics, which has been paralyzed on several occasions and has already had three different awardees, there is a possibility that the staircase will be completed by the summer of 2022. That is the forecast with which we are currently working. «Advances slowly due to the complications of the terrain, but in the La Orotava City Council We are very satisfied with its reactivation and we trust that the deadlines with which Gesplan works can be met, ”emphasizes the councilor.
Currently, small machinery is being used to open the new access path to the sand from the end of the new staircase. A complicated and risky task, because it is a very eroded and unstable cliff.
The president of the Cabildo de Tenerife, Pedro Martin (PSOE), recognizes that “the state in which these accesses are found is very dangerous, so we have believed sufficient reasons of public interest to justify this important subsidy of 300,000 euros, which will help the El Rincón Consortium to carry out this necessary project in the municipality of La Orotava ».
The Tenerife Council has recently approved in the Governing Council, through the area of Management of the Natural Environment and Security, the granting of this grant of 300,000 euros, key for the financing of the last approved budget. It is the third of a performance that it was valued at just 106,000 euros in 2014 and subsequently to 500,000 euros in 2019. At the end of 2021, its cost has risen to 609,176 euros. Almost six times more than in 2014.
The cost of the project has multiplied by six since 2014, when it was budgeted at just 106,000 euros
«The problem of access to Los Patos beach has become recurring. It is a beach that generates great tourist interest in the north and, of course, for the local population “, says the president of the Cabildo, Pedro Martín.
“There are several reasons, of an administrative nature, that have appealed about this project since its inception, which has delayed its start-up and has even forced a previous subsidy to be reversed. It was in May 2021 when the El Rincón Consortium It once again requested the Cabildo for the concession of this amount, which has been paid with a period of one year for the execution of the works “, as explained by the counselor of the Natural Environment and Safety Management area, Isabel García (PSOE).
The El Rincón Consortium is an entity with its own legal personality, made up of the public administrations of the Autonomous Community of the Canary Islands, the Island Council of Tenerife and the City Council of La Orotava, as well as several private entities such as the Association of Owners of El Rincón, the Association of Neighbors Unión Vistas del Teide and the Coordinadora Ecologista de El Rincón-Ecologistas en Acción.
