“An idea that, like so many others, has already been thrown away.” This is what the Alicante City Council said about the plan to build a cable car to Santa Bárbara Castle on Friday, December 5th.
Cristina Cutanda, a spokesperson for the local PP government, said last Friday that the idea of putting in a cable car between the city’s metropolitan centre and the citadel “has never been considered and will never be considered.” Cutanda went on to say that the City Council is focusing on “the largest investment in the monument’s history.”
“An idea, like many others”
The Popular Party councillor said that the project is “an idea, like so many others that have been considered in the City Council, but which was thrown out a long time ago and has never been considered by this government team.”
After a recent bid to turn the Las Cigarreras area into a museum, plans were made to turn an entire building into a museum. This idea has been supported by several city officials since it was first studied in 1971, when Mayor Magulliza was in charge.
Antonio Peral, the Councillor for Innovation, said in a 2024 interview with INFORMACIÓN that the governing committee was looking for “a cutting-edge solution so that, if this cable car project isn’t feasible, a project can be developed to improve accessibility to both fortresses.” Two years before that, the People’s Party (PP) and Citizens (Ciudadanos) were in a coalition government. They started a Public Procurement of Innovation process to identify technological solutions for experimental projects like making Santa Bárbara Castle easier to get to.
Putting money into
This process led to two suggestions, but both were rejected because they were not “innovative” enough and were instead based on technology that were already “on the market,” which went against the goal of the program.
The municipal spokesperson now completely rules out the initiative and brings up the emergency and safety work that is currently being done on the northeast slope of Benacantil. This work costs 1.5 million euros and is in addition to another three million euros that have been spent on other conservation and improvement projects to make the visitor experience better, such as the restoration of the Santa Ana bastion and the transformation of the old Forestry Engineer’s House into a Visitor Interpretation Centre, among other things.
Author: Derek Appleton
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