Aurelio Martínez, President of the Port Authority of Valencia: “We want the citizens of Gandia to know their port, to touch it, to walk on it, to stroll around it and to appreciate it”.
José Manuel Prieto: “This agreement contributes to taking a decisive step in the new way of approaching the relationship of the city with the sea”.
The PAV temporarily cedes the use of the space to develop the planned urbanisation project.
The president of the Port Authority of Valencia (PAV), Aurelio Martínez, and the mayor of Gandia, José Manuel Prieto, have signed a collaboration agreement between the two institutions on the urban development project around the church of Sant Nicolau del Grau.
The urban development project is part of the Tourism Sustainability Plan II, through which the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism has granted Gandia 3 million euros to carry out a series of actions aimed at the recovery of spaces for citizens, the connection of the city with its natural surroundings and the application of technological solutions to improve the information and interaction of visitors. One of the actions included in the Tourism Sustainability Plan is the urban improvement of the area around the church of Sant Nicolau, an action that is part of the process of declaring this monument an Asset of Cultural Interest.
Specifically, Gandia Town Council plans to build a boulevard in this area and plant a series of trees, specifically pine trees, to make the area around the church of Sant Nicolau a friendlier space. It so happens that part of these actions, specifically those referring to the planting of pine trees, will be carried out on land in the public domain of the port. That is why the Port Authority of Valencia has been receptive to the demands of Gandia Town Council and through this agreement, temporarily cedes the use of the space to develop the planned development project.
Prieto thanked the Port Authority of Valencia for its collaboration, which with the signing of this agreement “contributes to taking a decisive step forward in the new way of approaching the city’s relationship with the sea”.
The Mayor pointed out that “with the aid from the Tourism Sustainability Plan we will improve, in the first phase, the port-city interaction, but we will also transform this part of the district in urban terms. This will generate opportunities and create a new space with the potential to change the way people look at the sea”.
The mayor added that, after achieving this first phase, in a second stage “we will integrate the sheds into the space that we are going to improve urbanistically. In fact, Prieto said that next week the Gandia Town Hall will open the first of the envelopes of the ideas competition for the sheds “with the intention that they become a space of opportunities and economic generation and contribute to creating a friendly and comfortable environment that will change the urban appearance of the district”.
For his part, the president of the Port Authority, Aurelio Martínez, highlighted the good relations that Gandia City Council and the organisation he represents have historically maintained and added that the Port is obliged to have a friendly relationship with the environment it occupies, to open to the public and to encourage port-city interaction. Martínez emphasised that his intention is “to collaborate with projects which are reasonable and above all, to attract the citizens to the port, because it is difficult to love what you do not know. That is why we want the citizens of Gandia to get to know their port, to touch it, to walk on it, to stroll through it and to appreciate it”.
The event was also attended by the deputy director of the Port Authority, Néstor Martínez; the deputy mayor of Gandia, Josep Alandete, and the president of the Grau District Council, Miguel Ángel Picornell.
Gandia City Council and the PAV have collaborated closely in recent years in the development of cultural, mobility and access projects in the port area of the capital of La Safor. Both institutions are working together to shape strategies, actions and common projects for the Port-city relationship.