Two key projects:
Decentralisation and the city’s project
tation is that of mayors who present their
candidacies every four years.
I think that having a project is the key. I have
had a project for this city since the begin-
ning and everyone has known and unders-
tood this from the start. You should not lea-
ve the road that you have taken and should
achieve such an objective. I also think that
since Cartagena is a medium-size city, no-
body is surprised when they see the city’s
mayor at the supermarket or drinking a cup
of coffee and I think this is something that
the city’s residents appreciate.
What significant projects have been ca-
rried out?
We have executed very important projects.
We have recovered the city’s heritage and
have made that heritage a very significant
part of an economic sector such as tou-
rism. We have also decentralised the City
Council. In the Autonomous Community of
Murcia there are only 45 cities and towns;
this city covers an area of 500 km
2
. They
are very large municipalities with very large
populations.
For example, Cartagena has a population
of 220,000 but many urban and rural popu-
lation centres with 2,000 and 3,000 inhabi-
tants, many more than other city councils
in Spain. What we have done is to decen-
tralised, that is, any citizen who lives in any
a municipality can go to the decentralised
offices of the City Council for administrative
processes and as to democratic participa-
tion, the municipality is divided into districts
each with their neighbourhood local gover-
nment offices formed by the neighbours
who decide their own budget.
Each councilman also has a sector of the
municipality under his direct responsibility
and therefore, people have realised that
their needs are covered almost immediately
and if not, they can go to responsible party
from their neighbourhood office, generally
local people who volunteer for that post,
plus a councilman who is the one who can
be found at this representative office.
How would you like to see the Cartage-
na of the future, how can you imagine it
I would like it to be what it is now. It is a very
pleasant city for living and for visiting. And I
would also like to see the entire urban cen-
tre to be recovered since many of us what
it to be accessible, habitable and pleasant
downtown district, not just a centre that
closes when tourism activities are over and
just disappears and closes. We have had to
work had on making it a pedestrian zone,
with bicycle lanes, and also on recovering
the 19th century building façades which
was an important project. Recovering the
city for pedestrian traffic was a challenge for
me and it required a lot of work and efforts.
FCC in Cartagena
FCC’s presence in Cartagena dates back
to 1981 with the historical Construccio-
nes y Contratas where we started to pro-
vide waste collection and street cleaning
services in several municipalities.
In the mid-1980s, this service was con-
solidated and expanded to the remaining
parts of the municipality (city and neigh-
bourhoods) and, also at that time, the
company started to manage the urban
waste recycling centre and the landfill
site.
In 1990, the company was awarded
a contract for cleaning schools and in
the mid 90s, the joint venture, Lhicarsa,
whose partners are the Cartagena City
Council and FCC was founded. This
company is in charge of street cleaning,
waste collection, and waste treatment.
In 1996, the company won a contract for
cleaning municipal buildings and in 2002;
it won another contract for park and gar-
den maintenance and upkeep. In 2006
and 2007, it was awarded a contract for
managing the city’s eco-parks.
The services provided to the city of Car-
tagena are consolidating and are cu-
rrently being expanded.
