The city of Alicante is completely changing its blue and orange parking zones. It is putting out a public tender to choose a company to run them for the next 19 years. The council will spend up to €140 million on the controlled parking system and the municipal towing service. The system will be expanded to new neighbourhoods, adding about 2,500 parking spaces.
Yesterday Tuesday April 7th, the Local Governing Board accepted the call for tenders. This involves the building of a new municipal vehicle impound facility on Vía Parque, near Rabasa. The local government says that the exorbitant expense of this infrastructure for the responsible firm is why the contract has been extended for almost two decades.
Luis Barcala’s administration says that one of the most important new elements of the service is the creation of 2,542 new regulated parking spots in the neighbourhoods of Ensanche-Diputación, Benalúa Sur, the area around the courthouses, and Princesa Mercedes. Deputy Mayor Manuel Villar said that in some of these neighbourhoods, the extra parking spaces will only be in the orange zone, and the blue zone will not go any bigger. Also, people who live there will be allowed to utilise these areas for free, instead of at a lower price like they used to.
Contract stalled
The Alicante City Council approved an extraordinary extension of the contract in November 2024, eleven months after it had expired and after all other normal extensions had been used up. This was the fifth extension since the contract was awarded in 2013 for an initial period of eight years, with the option of a two-year extension. The Local Governing Board held an extraordinary meeting to approve the agreement, which extended the concession even though the current extension ended on January 25th, 2025, and there has been no tender procedure for a new contract yet.
The rules are being changed at a time when the city’s budget expects to make twice as much money from paid parking areas. The City Council’s income section shows that the parking fee will go up a lot, from €2.2 million in 2025 to €4.79 million in 2026, which is a 114% rise. Fines for traffic breaches are also predicted to bring in up to €8.5 million, down from €6.1 million in 2025, a 39% drop. Also, it is expected that the number of cars towed to the city impound lot will go up by 15%.
