Torrevieja City Council has taken a significant step towards the expansion of Torrevieja University Hospital. The Mayor, Eduardo Dolón, has signed a decree approving the processing of an urban planning agreement for the advance transfer of public land. This land is designated for the crucial healthcare infrastructure, which originally opened in 2006.
This resolution officially launches the administrative process for the agreement, which will place the necessary land at the disposal of the Ministry of Health. The expansion of the hospital centre has long been requested by the city and is considered strategic to continue improving healthcare services in Torrevieja and its entire area of influence.
The agreement involves the voluntary and advance transfer of public land plot PQM-1, located in Sector S-29 “La Ceñuela”. The plot covers a total area of 11,492 square metres and is owned by the company Explotaciones Agrícolas La Ceñuela. This company also acts as the urban developer for the sector, which includes a residential area with a capacity for 1,347 homes and 3,387 new residents, alongside a commercial zone, educational facilities, and green spaces. The advance transfer will speed up the availability of the land without the need to wait for the completion of the urban land redistribution process.
The municipal technical services issued a report considering this advance transfer formula favourable. They believe it is an ideal urban planning tool to urgently address the general public interest without harming the urban planning of the sector or the future economic rights of the developer. The City Council stated that this mechanism aims to make progress in handing over the necessary land to the Generalitat Valenciana, allowing the Ministry of Health to plan and execute the expansion of the University Hospital. This is one of the most significant healthcare projects for the municipality and all towns within the Torrevieja Health Department.
Following the signature of the mayoral decree, the initial text of the agreement will undergo a 20-day public consultation period. It will be published in the Official Provincial Gazette and on the municipal notice board, allowing any interested person to submit objections before its final approval. Once this administrative phase is complete and any potential objections are resolved by the local government board, the local authority will continue processing the agreement to finalise the advance transfer of the land. This will enable the Ministry of Health to obtain the land needed to develop the hospital expansion as quickly as possible.
The plenary session in April approved the initiation of a specific amendment to the General Urban Development Plan to approve the urban plan for the “La Ceñuela” sector, which spans 399,354 square metres. This was pending final approval so that the municipality could receive the 11,492 square metres of facility land earmarked in that sector to transfer to the Generalitat for the hospital expansion.
During a visit to the hospital centre with the regional minister in February, Dolón reported on the expansion in response to pressure from citizen groups demanding improvements in healthcare assistance. He noted that the transfer was already underway and specified the surface area of the plot, without referencing the specific amendment at that time, which began processing at the developer’s request in 2024. Shortly before, the project had received environmental approval from the Generalitat for its partial plan proposal, on the condition that final approval was obtained through amendment number 116 of the General Plan.
The plot being transferred for the hospital expansion is part of an urban plan that began its administrative process in 2005 to reclassify rural land to developable land. This land has appeared in planning since that time with acquired rights.
The land is located east of the hospital car park, an area where a new road access to the healthcare centre will be opened, level with the Torremiguel Irrigation Community path. Both this expansion and the project to duplicate the CV-95 road were dependent on the amendment of the General Plan and the approval of the land redistribution project, which is why the newly signed decree brings the transfer forward.
In 2003, the landowners had already provided the City Council with 100,000 square metres of public facility land where the hospital was built, which the council transferred to the Generalitat. This was done on account of the processing of this same urban plan and the reclassification of more than 700,000 square metres of non-developable land into developable land.
When the plan was practically approved in 2015, the Consell del Botànic halted it. In 2018, they decided to protect green infrastructure along the Valencian coast through Pativel, creating a corridor between the Torrevieja lagoon and Cala Ferrís. This affected approximately 70 per cent of the planning for the “La Ceñuela” sector. The developers decided to readapt their proposal to Pativel, creating an adapted and slightly reduced version. Following subsequent legal proceedings maintained by the developers against the Generalitat regarding Pativel, a favourable ruling restored the possibility for the entire area to be developable once again.
