The socialist party in Torrevieja has questioned why the local Partido Popular government is prepared to renounce nearly three million euro intended for the expansion of educational facilities, particularly at a time when teachers are on strike.
Bárbara Soler, the spokesperson for the Torrevieja Municipal Socialist Group, revealed that the regional education department, Conselleria de Educación, is demanding that the town council give up nearly three million euro from the Plan Edificant. This specific funding was allocated for the expansion of classrooms at the IES Libertas secondary school.
The Plan Edificant is a regional framework created by the former Govern del Botànic. Under this system, municipalities outline their educational needs to the regional department, which then delegates the authority to local councils to tender and execute the works. The town councils manage the construction projects and later present the invoices to the regional department for reimbursement.
In 2023, authority was delegated to Torrevieja for both the comprehensive refurbishment of IES Libertas and the expansion of its classrooms for vocational training cycles. While the refurbishment work was completed, the classroom expansion was never carried out.
According to Soler, the regional department has now informed Torrevieja Town Council that, in order to release the payment for the completed refurbishment works, the municipality must officially renounce the unexecuted expansion part of the project. Soler stated that this means the department is offering 300,000 euro on the condition that the town gives up nearly three million euro. She noted that while the regional department cannot legally condition the payment on this waiver, the local Partido Popular administration is failing to challenge the demand.
The justification given for dropping the expansion is that the project was originally authorised for vocational training cycles, which are no longer going ahead because a dedicated Integrated Vocational Training Centre is planned for the city in the future. However, the PSOE pointed out that this future centre had already been announced when the IES Libertas expansion was first approved. Furthermore, the proposed centre currently lacks a defined plot of land, has no funding or execution dates, and sits at the very bottom of the educational priorities list for Torrevieja.
Meanwhile, Torrevieja faces an ongoing educational emergency. During the last academic year alone, more than 2,000 late-enrolled pupils arrived in the municipality. The town continues to contend with prefabricated temporary classrooms, overcrowded student ratios, a lack of educational spaces, and continuous population growth driven by new urban developments.
The socialists have linked this situation directly to the ongoing teacher strike in the Valencian Community, where a primary demand is the provision of dignified and sufficient educational infrastructure. Soler stated that the situation in Torrevieja perfectly exemplifies the issues being denounced by the educational community, including a lack of planning, saturation, and the blocking of necessary investments.
The socialist spokesperson insisted that the obstacle is political rather than legal, as the project could simply be modified within the Plan Edificant framework to adapt to current local needs. She explained that the purpose of the project could be amended from an “expansion for vocational training” to an “expansion to respond to the exorbitant increase in student numbers”. Such modifications are standard practice within the Plan Edificant, which is designed to respond to real educational needs.
Soler concluded by criticising the Partido Popular for blocking a tool that was originally created by the Botànic government to unblock infrastructure projects. She expressed regret that necessary investments are being halted while teachers and families continue to demand more funding and better facilities.
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