In 2022, eight offices, ninety-eight car parking spaces, and thirty-three motorcycle spaces were purchased from Comercial A Tope and Depósitos Almacenes Número 1 for over €1.9 million.
Rubens Ascanio Gómez, councillor and co-spokesperson for Unidas se puede, raised a question at the municipal plenary meeting this Thursday regarding the utilisation of the eight municipal offices acquired by the Council in Plaza José Hernández Arocha in Taco at the end of 2022.
The response from the municipal official was surprising, as it was revealed that their use was still under consideration, three years after the purchase of these properties.
It is worth noting that in May 2022, the Council purchased eight offices primarily to “facilitate the centralisation of all services currently provided in the existing building of the Tenencia de Alcaldía in the Taco area, which includes general registration tasks, ORVE, SIR, and offices for various political groups, as the current premises are insufficient.”
The initial proposal, aimed at addressing the demand from the Social Welfare department for a new UTS, evolved into other uses following a visit from technical staff in the department who questioned the suitability for public service due to the existence of private premises in the same building and access issues.
They find it striking that, following an investment of €1.9 million from the local budget for the purchase of these spaces owned by Comercial A Tope and Depósitos Almacenes Número 1, the use of the premises remains pending a future political decision, indicating that perhaps “it was not as urgent or necessary a purchase as others that were halted without valid reasons.”
“It is surprising that after so much time these offices remain closed, while new municipal offices continue to be purchased and entire publicly owned buildings are left unused,” he asserts. Regarding the Tenencia de Taco, he notes that there is an ongoing judicial process to determine whether it is a public or private asset, “which complicates its use and the improvements required, until it is designated as a municipal asset as it could have been registered by a private individual.”
He indicates that “these offices were requested as a potential space for a Youth Centre at the end of the previous term, and there are other projects that would allow, for example, their adaptation to facilitate at least one space to conduct Training Programmes in Alternation with Employment (PFAE and PFAE-GJ), yet, as seen from the answer provided, there has been no success in this term.”
Ascanio considers this a “symptom of a lack of ideas and projects, coupled with a clear lack of coordination, that retains eight municipal offices closed in Taco, while the UTS is overwhelmed and the Tenencia is in a precarious state, while in other districts we have incurred over six million euros in this term on new office building purchases.”
He believes that the previous administration aimed to recover municipal buildings and spaces that had been closed for years, but now the situation has changed. “There is not only a decrease in the opening of public spaces such as Plaza del Hermano Ramón, Drago Park of the Seminary, or Mesa Mota, but there is also no progress whatsoever in utilising the premises acquired between Calle Viana and Herradores, the one on Marqués de Celada, or the eight offices in Taco, while entire public buildings, like the annex to the Church of San Agustín, are left abandoned without plans for rehabilitation and use,” he points out.
He adds that from Unidas se puede they will continue to urge the PSOE-CC government for greater “coordination and direction, ensuring that those in charge in 2027 will find better resources and more suitable spaces than those encountered in 2023, rather than the opposite, as is happening now.”
