The swimming pool and municipal sports complex of Santa Úrsula They have been closed for four years after the conflict with the Eulen concession company, which abandoned management prematurely for economic reasons, as he argued at the time. Since then, users have been waiting for a reopening that is not known when it will come true.
A mandate has passed in which the government group has not been able to start the works that make it possible for it to be reopened, although steps have been taken with this objective, says the mayor, Juan Acosta.
Among them, he cites the pronouncement of the Advisory Council, which agreed with the City Council, and allowed him to recover the keys to the complex to put it out for tender again and not return Eulen the deposit of 171,886 euros that he demanded.
To this is added the million euros granted by the Government of the Canary Islands to adapt facilities that have become obsolete and adapt them to current regulations. Modifications that will also make it attractive and at the same time profitable for the future concessionaire.
“During this time we were advising at the market level and by experts, on what was the best solution so that when going out to tender it would have guarantees,” says the mayor.
As a consequence, according to the president, the project is being prepared to tender the works that will be necessary to undertake given that the conditions in which the installation was delivered “were unfortunate”, but it has a solution according to the calculations of the technicians.
Despite the fact that he always insisted that it should be kept with water to avoid the deterioration of the glasses and the boiler, Acosta confirmed that it is currently empty. “The boilers are no longer efficient and they will be replaced by plates, there will be thermal blankets and the changing rooms must be enlarged, just like the fitness rooms. It’s a pretty major internal restructuring,” she notes.
“It will be a pool that will be prepared for sports, but there will also be a device that will allow the pool to be shortened so that it can be used by people with disabilities. Without losing the sporting aspect, we must focus on the social aspect, the needs of the population, and we have conveyed this to those interested in the project”, Acosta specifies.
The mayor prefers to be cautious and not give deadlines. The specifications are prepared to put it out to tender as soon as possible and it is clear that the execution and subsequent award will follow, which will not be for more than four years to avoid what happened with the previous concessionaire.
The councilor does not deny that during the time it has been closed “angry and concerned people have come and I understand it, but we do not feel guilty about what happened because the company left us overnight and without any justification, even with a sentence court that ratified that he was not losing money, as he argued.
Meanwhile, in all this time, it has opted for this type of facilities in the region. In the case of the El Mayorazgo swimming pool, in La Orotava, with important financial injections from the City Council. In La Matanza de Acentejo, with an extension that has allowed the addition of two streets with the possibility of extending it to 50 meters and new accesses with external ramps, actions that have been carried out in a year.
The works of the Insular Water Sports Center, at a good pace
The works of the Insular Center for Aquatic Activities, which is being built on the land of the old municipal swimming pool of Puerto de la Cruz, continue at a good pace and if there are no last-minute changes, they will be finished by the end of the year.
This is confirmed to this newspaper by the insular Sports Councilor, Concepción Rivero, who specifies that a series of contracts must be put into operation to start the activity. In this sense, she details that there is a plan configured in the public company IDECO to manage the installation, whose budget reaches 14 million.
Likewise, the City Council was asked to transfer the administrative concession of Coasts to the Cabildo so that this Administration is the owner of the facility, which has an insular dimension with national and international competitions. “That requires that it assume the management, especially when the cost of having it open will be high,” he emphasizes.
