The Tenerife Island Council has awarded the preparation of the necessary study to determine the cost of conservation and maintenance tasks of the Valle de Güímar Industrial Park. This document is the essential preliminary step that will serve as a basis for defining the amount that each of the municipalities that this infrastructure covers will contribute to this end. It is currently in the writing phase.
This measure is part of the agreements reached by the mayors of Candelaria (Mari Brito), Arafo (Juan Ramón Martín), and Güímar (Gustavo Pérez) with the Island Corporation during the previous term, specifically in December 2022. During the current term, they have already held two meetings with the island’s councillor for Industry, Commerce, Primary Sector, and Animal Welfare, Manuel Fernández Vega.
The conservation and maintenance of the Valle de Güímar Industrial Park will be a task assumed by the Consortium, a body yet to be created and to be made up of the municipalities of Candelaria, Arafo, and Güímar as well as the Tenerife Island Council. This entity is the alternative to the Urban Conservation Entity (EUC), whose establishment was negotiated for several years with negative results. At that time, a contribution of 50,000 euros was quantified from each of the municipalities to maintain one of the most important industrial areas on the island.
It turns out that Arafo, the smallest municipality of the three, contributes 52.98% (1,072,827 square meters) of the area of the Industrial Estate of Southeast Tenerife; 17.72% (358,814 square meters) belongs to the municipality of Candelaria, while Güímar’s territory accounts for 29.30% of the area (593,358 square meters). The Valle de Güímar Industrial Park covers 2,024,999 square meters.
The authorities consulted admit that “there is still much work to be done,” but they are convinced that “we are on the right path.” They acknowledge that one of the most worrying aspects is the Chiguengue well, owned by the three municipalities since the transfer of the Industrial Park to the municipalities of the Valle de Güímar. However, its operation remains in private hands, as well as the economic results of its management.
The Reception
[–>
There is a date that marks the before and after of this industrial complex and the region in which it is located. At 11:45 a.m. on July 22, 2013, in the civic and commercial building located on the main avenue of the complex, the general director of the State Land Entity (Sepes), Lucía Molares; the general delegate of Caixabank in Canarias, David Cova; the mayors of Arafo, José Juan Lemes, and Candelaria, José Gumersindo García, as well as the mayor of Güímar, Carmen Luisa Castro, signed the receipt of the Valle de Güímar Industrial Park in the presence of the president of the Tenerife Island Council, Ricardo Melchior.
Under this agreement, each of the municipalities received almost one million euros, as well as a plot per municipality and an industrial warehouse per council. The benefits also included ownership of the Chiguengue well, which, in addition to being the source that supplies the more than 200 companies located in this industrial park – with a census close to 3,000 workers – is also a service managed by the private sector, in this case awarded to the company Targa.
As a preliminary step to the delivery of the Industrial Park to the municipalities of the Valle de Güímar, the Mixed Compensation Association that managed the complex carried out comprehensive rehabilitation works, which were completed in 2012 and required an investment of over eight million euros. Currently, twelve years later, deterioration in its roads and lack of maintenance and conservation in the common areas are being observed once again.
In between, there have been complaints, sanctions, and works to solve the problem of illegal discharges into the sea of industrial waters. The Güímar Valley Industrial Park already has its treatment plant, but the matter still keeps four mayors pending to resolve a legal process.
