“We will terminate the contract with the Padre Anchieta catwalk company unless in the next few days it sends us an offer that makes us change our minds.” The president of the Cabildo de Tenerife, Peter Martin, yesterday showed his anger with the company chosen to execute a project, that of the pedestrian walkway at the Anchieta roundabout, in La Laguna, which is vital to decongest traffic on the North highway.
Martín expressed his disagreement with the delay in the work and warned the winning company, Obras Huarte Lain, that if it does not solve the problems, a file will be opened to break the agreement. The socialist president does not rule out even disabling it so that it cannot be submitted to more public tenders. “We have called it a chapter,” Martín made it clear yesterday in statements to the SER chain in Tenerife.
«The work was awarded more than a year ago and the catwalk should already be being assembled but the materials have not arrived. With the problems we have on the roads, we can’t keep waiting.”, warned Martín in the aforementioned station. On October 5 of last year, the Corporation awarded Obras Huarte Lain the construction of the pedestrian walkway at the Padre de Anchieta junction, on the TF-5 road of regional interest, as it passes through La Laguna, works that have a budget of 8.8 million euros. Martín assured that disciplinary files have been opened against this construction company. “We will reach the ultimate consequences if there is no progress. It is incomprehensible that after a year we are still waiting for the metallic structure to arrive, which represents 80% of the project », he emphasized.
The island vice president and head of Highways, Enrique Arriaga (Cs), clarified yesterday to EL DÍA that he hopes “not to have to reach that contract termination” and points out that before reaching that extreme “there are previous steps” that have not yet been have given. The company has requested a new extension of six months, which will be granted “with penalties”, warns Arriaga. With this new delay of half a year, Arriaga’s forecast is that the walkway of the Padre Anchieta roundabout “can be finished between April and May 2023”. If there were further delays or defaults on the part of the company, then it might be time to consider a termination “which would not be good for anyone”. Given the complexity of this work and the bidding processes, a termination of the contract with the work in progress could lead to a significant delay in the final execution of the works.
The work will be executed as a continuous curved ring-shaped beam of approximately 100 meters in diameter, supported by a system of punctual supports, with a square attached to the current car park of the Faculty of Biology of the University of La Lagunaand a total length of the ring of about 314 meters.
