The merger between the Extremian locations of Don Benito (some 37,000 inhabitants) and Villanueva de la Serena (25,000) continues to take accelerated steps so that it can be a reality in 2027 if the neighbors of both Pacensian populations grant a major support to the project.
It is the most ambitious union that has been raised in democracy and would turn this population nucleus into the third of greater importance of this autonomous community, only behind Badajoz and Cáceres, with an area with an area of 713 km2.
Thus, and after celebrating both town halls, an extraordinary full week to count on the legal support to this merger, on Wednesday the mayors of both populations (José Luis Quintana and Miguel Ángel Gallardo) have been received at the Palace of La Moncloa for the
President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, who has supported the project and has committed himself to accelerate the procedures thereof.
In the meeting, the Minister of Territorial Policy and Spokesman of the Government, Isabel Rodríguez, and the President of the Junta de Extremadura, Guillermo Fernández Vara have also been present.
The following procedure so that the merger is a reality is that the government’s president authorizes the celebration of a referendum in both populations.
The objective of both mayors is to accelerate the deadlines to reduce the date initially marked on the calendar that they themselves had been marked at the beginning of the procedures: that the merger was a reality in 2031. Now, it is attempting to cut the
Deadlines to 2027.
To this end, the Council of Ministers should authorize the celebration of this consultation before finalizing this year so that the referendum can be held in the first quarter of the next year, as the mayor of Villanueva, Miguel Ángel Gallardo has confirmed at the end of the
meeting.
Thus, the Edil has pointed out that the head of the Executive “has been very supportive to streamline the process.”
According to Moncloa at the end of the meeting, the President of the Government has thus known the planning of both locations – which already share various public services – so that, after a popular consultation, the merger process is started “for which they have been
Marked a 10-year temporary horizon. ”
In this sense, Gallardo has explained that “we have moved it that it is important that we could do it within the first quarter of the year, at the end of February or early March. Those are the dates in which it has stayed to reach that goal.
, which, in any case, we believe that it is important for us because it supposes the acceleration of the process. ”
If citizens mostly support the merger, the dates to culminate the process “will depend a lot” of the support of the population, although, in any case, “at most” would be in 2027. That date – with the beginning besides
A new political legislature after the holding of municipal elections – would be counted on a single town hall for both locations, which barely separate eight kilometers away from them.
The consistory building would be located near the new hospital that is in construction procedures for both populations.
The mayor of Don Benito has recognized that the fusion project “is not easy”, but the Government President “has shown its support” to continue and “help in everything possible to be a reality.”
Among the new infrastructures, the construction of a new Palace of Justice and a single railway station is also foreseen.
Both mayors have confessed the responsibility they have this project after becoming public as they feel from these “observed” moments throughout the country, so their actions must represent “a model and an example to follow”.
In this sense, Gallardo, during its meeting with employers, recalled that it is a project that “is being observed throughout the country” and that it can be “model and example to follow” and that it should also be “generous”
By both populations “because they will have to make some renunciations” in search of a common identity when merging.
In parallel, the mayor of Don Benito has highlighted that the merger has “unanimous support” of the political forces of Extremadura.
According to the studies carried out by both consisting, the resulting urban area would rise as the second economic pole of the province of Badajoz and the first economic municipal nucleus of both the agriculture and livestock sector and the industry in Extremadura.
The impact of this merger in terms of wealth, economic activity and development of income would be increased by 2.75% in household income and 5% in job creation, especially in services and companies, as well as in the population
With university studies.
If this merger occurs, it would be the first in Spain since the approval of the Sustainability Law of the Local Administration in 2013.
