18/05/2022 -ALICANTE. New project pending the second accounting adjustment of the Alicante City Council budget. The government team, the bipartite made up of Partido Popular (PP) and Ciudadanos (Cs), has announced this Wednesday its intention to allocate 1.3 million of the municipal surplus (money budgeted but not spent) to the first phase of the rehabilitation and transformation of the old Aguamarga slaughterhouse into a centre dedicated to innovation and entrepreneurship, now renamed Ágora Futura. This is a reformulation of the project drawn up by the former tripartite during the last term of office (PSOE, Guanyar and Compromís) under the name of Capçalera d’Innovació.
These 1.3 million for the beginning of the transformation of the building will be incorporated into the accounts through the second credit modification that the bipartite plans to raise to plenary between the months of May and June with the aim of incorporating part of the 80 million in municipal savings available after the liquidation of the 2021 financial year.
This was announced by the councillor of Employment and president of the Local Agency, Mari Carmen de España, during the development of the Governing Board of the autonomous institution, in which she emphasised that, at the conclusion of the rehabilitation project, the complex of the old slaughterhouse will be dedicated to promote innovative and technological entrepreneurship, linked to the municipal digital strategy Alicante Futura. The project will have an overall budget of 9 million euros, which will be executed over several years.
Similarly, De España added that this second credit modification will include 655,900 euros of the remaining funds to begin work in 2021 on the extension of the Príncipe Felipe incubator in Aguamarga, through the construction of 10 new warehouses in addition to the 12 existing ones. The project has an overall budget of 3,246,672.42 euros and a completion period of 11 months. This project will be financed with new contributions in future years until the cost of its execution is completed.
“The municipal government team will give a strong boost to the development of the Futura Territories (Tossal Lab, Centro de Emprendedores, Espacio Vaillo, coworking of the Business Incubator and the Mercalicante agri-food hub), to which will be added the development of the ‘Ideas Gymnasium’ in the facilities of the old fire station in Seneca, in collaboration with Aguas Municipalizadas de Alicante, with all the projects already drawn up”, commented the councillor.
The progress on the promotion of both projects has been made after the Agency’s Governing Board unanimously approved the Activities Report for 2021, which includes an execution of 85.48% of the budget. In addition, this report specifies that 3,746 people have received advice on finding employment, that 293 activities and 11,303 hours of training have been given to 3,869 participants, and that advice has been given on the creation of 141 companies, after providing help to 965 people who have been offered assistance on entrepreneurship for the start-up of new businesses and companies.
One of the aspects most highlighted in the report, in addition to the 141 companies created in 2021, are the 492 people who have gained access to the labour market through the Agency. De España thanked the work of “the whole team of people who make up the Local Development Agency ‘Impulsalicante’ that make it possible year after year to help thousands of Alicante residents to integrate into the labour market through advice, training and entrepreneurship and, in a special way, to the whole team that has worked throughout the year to help them to find employment, to the whole team that has worked hard to process more than 17 million euros in aid aimed at supporting Alicante’s productive sectors during the covid pandemic, to prevent them from having to close their shutters and to boost economic activity in the city”.
For his part, the municipal spokesperson for Compromís, Natxo Bellido, said at the end of the meeting of the Governing Board that, “from Compromís we appreciate and value positively the work done in moving forward aid to productive sectors in the pandemic and recognize certain lines relating to employment training that are consolidating, but we remain critical of the lack of a real Youth Employment Plan, the inability to invest, only 8. 5% in 2021 and the paralysis in the expansion of industrial land, which makes us lose opportunities to settle companies that want to come to the city to generate employment and wealth and have to give up for lack of land, which is very serious”.
