Demolishing the municipal swimming pool has a cost of 2.5 million euros, an amount impossible to assume for a City Council like Los Silos, which this year plans to approve a budget of 5 million, which must comply with an adjustment plan from 2012 , with a negative cash balance, without a surplus and accumulating a debt of three million. “What do we do, we leave the nursery school and the residence without service?” Asks the mayor, Macarena Fuentes.
The president confirms that on Tuesday all the reports and allegations required to the Consistory by the General Directorate of the Coast and the Sea in Madrid were presented, defending the importance of maintaining facilities that the entire Island has benefited from for more than 50 years. Short. To these documents were added the institutional motions approved unanimously in the Los Silos, El Tanque and Buenavista Town Councils and in the Cabildo de Tenerife, a letter of support from the caravan associations and the more than 2,200 signatures collected until the last moment in the change.org platform.
The lands where the pool is located belong to Costas and are doomed to be demolished because they are in the maritime-terrestrial public domain. The concession expired in 2018 and the previous government (PSOE) did not request the extension on time. The current (CC-PP) began his fight to save the pool in June 2019. At that time, Costas informed him that it was necessary to request a new concession and all the corresponding documentation was presented. But, contrary to expectations, last month the state department communicated its refusal to renew it for 30 more years. The idea is to demolish it and leave the coast as before.
In parallel, the regional department required the City Council to undertake some works -repair of the exploded vessel, new boilers, and new technology pumps- which cost 365,376 euros and for which the Municipal Corporation had a “temporary” permit from the Demarcation de Coasts in Tenerife, according to the mayor, while the new concession was being processed.
The mayor stipulates that Costas will issue her response in September and is optimistic. “I hope it is positive, otherwise, we will go to court and where necessary. What is clear is that I am going to exhaust every last resource to save the pool ”, he warns.
In the economic report presented to Costas it is specified that the City Council is unable to assume the 2.5 million, while in the legal report, it alleges, based on the Costas Tenerife report, that it issued a proposal to Madrid requesting that it grant the concession. for 30 more years, “because a dam has been created associated with the pool that cost more than one million euros and that would disappear with the demolition,” explains the president. In the tourist and social aspect, the Consistory argues the tourist attraction and the social benefit of the facility. “Los Silos cannot grow much for the hull area, therefore, the economic engine that would drive the coast would be the swimming pool. For a municipality with fewer than 5,000 inhabitants, all the resources are few and if they take this out of us, they are crucifying us ”, explains Fuentes.
