The City Council and the Diputación de Barcelona have modified the agreement, by means of an addendum incorporated by the mayor Jaume Collboni and the president of the provincial corporation, Lluïsa Moret, by which part of the money contributed by this entity to the participation of the Consistory in the consultation plan of the Network of Local Governments of the past term (2019-2023) will be redirected to actions different from those initially planned. Specifically, the Council will partially finance a major city project, the redevelopment of La Rambla, and another of notable importance for Sarrià, the district library that is being built in the neighborhood’s main square.
The modification of the agreement was published last Tuesday in the Barcelona Municipal Gazette. Sources from the City Council have explained that the change responds to a purely technical criterion to be able to execute the 2020-2023 agreement in its entirety, without losing a single cent of the resources committed by the Provincial Council to the municipality, which amount to 50 million euros for the previous mandate, when the socialist mayor of l’Hospitalet de Llobregat, Núria Marín, presided over the provincial corporation and the common Ada Colau, was mayor of the capital of Catalonia.
The City Council has argued that the pandemic and inflation associated with the war in Ukraine forced it to delay some of the projects that were going to be financed in this way. These unforeseen events made it impossible to meet the deadlines set in 2020. Therefore, the City Council has negotiated with the Provincial Council the economic redirection towards other projects that were also underway, specifically the reform of the Rambla and the construction of the library. Sarrià-Sant Gervasi. It must be taken into account that these two projects, like many other investments planned by the municipal government for this year, could be affected by the lack of new City Council budgets for this year (for now those for 2023 have been extended), a circumstance that should be resolved when the PSC closes a government pact.
There are eight projects into which the City Council will have finally injected the contributions of the Provincial Council. The new cultural facility at Fabra i Coats stands out for its volume of investment, with the creation of the Museum of Interpretation of Work and the City; the completion of the creation factory and the Contemporary Art Center; the adaptation of the Sant Andreu music school building; the redevelopment of the campus; the removal of asbestos from the spaces of the old factory and the rehabilitation of the machinery and heritage of the boiler, electrical and sprinkler rooms. In total, 11.7 million euros financed by the Provincial Council out of a total project cost of 12 million.
Other actions in which the Provincial Council has acted as patron are the expansion and renovation of the L’Illa sports pavilion (2.5 million financed by the entity chaired by Lluïsa Moret); the construction of the provisional pavilion of the Bederrida park (516,000 euros); the Espronceda Municipal Sports Center (3 million); the Sagrera Municipal Sports Center (1.68 million); and the replacement and improvement of the grass on various football fields, the cover of the Sant Jordi pool or the renovation of the Trinitat Vella outdoor pool (4.58 million).
To these actions have been added those of the redevelopment works in the area of ??Colón and Santa Madrona, the first phase of the reform of the Rambla, budgeted at 8.54 million of which the Provincial Council contributes 3.9 million, and the construction of the library in Plaza Sarrià, a project with a cost of 9.87 million euros to which the provincial corporation grants 1.92 million.