Although the neighborhood demand goes back to before, in 2018 the Hospitalet de Llobregat City Council decided to install an elevator in the Can Buxeres park. The works started in 2019 but almost five years later they remain unfinished.
A series of administrative problems and the global context have greatly postponed a project that aims to save the slope of this point in the Sanfeliu neighborhood. This Tuesday the City Council announced that work to complete the endless elevator has resumed. There is some skepticism among neighbors.
And an apparently not too complex work went awry from the beginning. Already at the end of 2019, a temporary suspension of work was regretted, but in 2020 things got very ugly. Covid brought a halt to this and many public works, but when the restrictions were lifted, the company carrying out the work went into bankruptcy. I couldn’t continue.
The skeleton where the elevator will be placed was raised, but it was left empty. The security of the space was prioritized first and when the tender for it was underway the first firm arrived and resolved it. Later the City Council tried to finish the first public tender with another corporation, but at that time the war in Ukraine and the increase in the cost of supplies was already a reality and no one was willing to finish the elevator at the price of years before.
Finally, the City Council opted for a “negotiated procedure,” says the first deputy mayor, Fran Belver. With this maneuver, the aim was to shorten the deadlines by consulting trusted companies and then “choosing the best offer.” However, since the beginning of June the elevator itself has been built in the factory.
Belver relates that during these days in Can Buxeres the work prior to the installation will be carried out and that the most visible works for the public will be carried out next month to have the equipment ready in November.
But with everything that has happened there is disbelief. “We don’t trust, we have heard promises many times,” says Santiago Lomares, board member of the Sanfeliu neighborhood association. “We have been behind the elevator for two terms,” he recalls.
“There is a lot of slope in an area with schools,” says Lomares, tired of seeing grandparents suffering with their grandchildren. In addition, there is a large supermarket and “with carts it is difficult.” “This time is the good one,” Belver swears on his part.
The first project had a price of 263,933 euros plus VAT. The current one, with the work half done, has a budget of 294,000. At the moment what is being done is a “small” civil work and the most expensive thing is the machinery, which has become “more expensive” due to the higher cost of materials and inflation, defends Belver.
