Mijas will boast the largest park in the province. The works to create  what will be the great ‘green lung’ of the Costa del Sol “will begin in 2023”, as announced by the Mijas Town Hall. The mayor of the town, Josele González (PSOE); the first deputy mayor and councillor for Infrastructures and Works, José Carlos Martín (Cs); and the councillors for Contracting and Town Planning, Roy Pérez (PSOE), and Andrés Ruiz (Cs), respectively, announced on Wednesday 4th the publication of the public tender for the construction of this green area to be enjoyed for the recreation and leisure of the whole family for 32.7 million euros, including VAT.

“This is perhaps the most ambitious project in the recent history of Mijas, as it will mean the construction of one of the largest parks in Andalusia”, said the mayor and, with 36 hectares, it will be the largest in the province and one of the largest in the region along with the María Luisa Park in Seville (34 hectares) and the Moret Park in Huelva (72 hectares).

According to the mayor, the park will be located at Finca El Ahogadero, “in an area that will undoubtedly be the expansion zone” of Mijas “very close to the Cerros del Águila housing development and the road that leads up to the old racecourse”.

 

It is a large-scale project with nature as the main protagonist: 20,000 plants and 2,000 trees and shrubs will form part of the gardens and woods of this park that follows “the line of development and city project” that the local government is seeking, according to González.

To be called the Grand Park of the Costa del Sol, this large green belt will also offer a skate park, an amphitheatre, a boating lake, running track, rock climbing wall and cycling and skating lanes, among other facilities spread over its 360,000 square metres.

The works that are now going out to tender could be awarded in the first semester of 2023. “By this year we will be able to see how work begins on this great project, which has been almost six years in the making and has been a challenge for the local administration, as we have had to overcome major technical difficulties that have arisen as well as the discovery of one of the most important Roman sites on the Costa del Sol”, said the councillor for Infrastructures and Works, who also considered it “a leading tourist attraction in the municipality as well as a space for quality leisure and recreation”.

As an example of the long trajectory of this initiative, Martín recalled that “the original project was drawn up in 2017 and a year later it had to be modified and divided in two to safeguard the archaeological discovery by adapting the bridges to the new cultural situation”. Therefore, on the one hand, the first phase of the works, consisting of the construction of the park, has now been put out to tender, while the second phase, which includes the access bridges to the site, has yet to be offered for tender.

This first phase has been put out to tender with a completion period of 18 months. The councillor for Contracting in Mijas explained that companies will have until the 30th of January to present their offers “for the execution of a project which in the next few months will become a tangible reality for the citizens  of Mijas” and which was “a neighbourhood demand”. For Pérez, this sought-after green zone “will place the municipality as a reference point in terms of green areas and recreational facilities”. “In the end, I consider that we have gained a new space for coexistence”, added the councillor for Town Planning, who recalled the “jigsaw puzzle” that has had to be resolved in order to bring together the land for this park, since, although most of it was municipally owned, it has also been necessary to obtain private land.

Councillor Ruiz also added that “the Costa del Sol’s ‘Plan for Territorial Development’ has been identifying large general systems and facilities that are of regional importance, which is why in the allegations to this plan we contemplated that the park should have the regional character that it deserves, as it is catalogued as a recreational park that is of importance to the community in general”.

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