After a considerable bout of uncertainty, the waste collection contract for Torrevieja has been awarded to the company who had been operating the service, Acciona.

The mayor of Torrevieja, Eduardo Dolón, accompanied by the councillor responsible for urban waste, Carmen Gómez, made the announcement that the Extraordinary Government Board approved the “Service for the collection of waste, transport to landfill, street cleaning and cleaning and maintenance of the coast” to the company Acciona Servicios Urbanos SL for an amount of award of 24,368,664 euro per year (IVA included).

The contract is for a period of 15 years, with which the Torrevieja City Council will pay the company 365,529,960 euro (IVA included), since it has presented an offer that includes a 6% reduction on the original bid.

The amount represents a total saving of more than 23 million euro in the 15-year duration of the contract, that is, a saving of 1,555,466 euro per year, meaning the overall saving of more than 23 million euro is the equivalent to almost a whole year of the annual service for free.

The agreement requires the company Acciona SL to present the required documentation and post the corresponding bond so that the service can be definitively awarded, the contract is signed, and the service can be started, in theory in a matter of weeks.

This service was put out to public tender for an annual fee of 25,924,110.65 euro per year, the overall bid amount being 388,861,659.78 euro.

The mayor has declared that it has been a process of just over 18 months since the bidding period was opened, and that it has not been without difficulties at times. “The officials have worked on the contract with the most important amount in the history of the Torrevieja City Council, in a process that is the result of an exhaustive, precise examination and, above all, carried out with rigor and professionalism,” he added.

The technical specifications show a series of requirements that the winning contractor must comply with as a design with higher service frequencies, an increase in the extension areas for manual and mechanical cleaning, an increase in the number of staff and a greater endowment of machinery and resources.

The mayor highlighted that all these objectives have been met, since the service will have a significant increase in the number of workers over the current service. The service will have at least 287 in low season and 390 in high season, which the specifications required.

Likewise, there is also a considerable increase in the number of machines assigned to collection and street cleaning, which is produced in an increase in the frequencies that we required in the specifications.

“Today we fulfil an important objective, a primary objective with which we stand in the elections and which was committed to the city of Torrevieja in the electoral program of the Popular Party,” added Dolón.