Ivan Zoido, who this Wednesday has acted as host of the act with which the Central Park of Mairena del Aljarafe has been inaugurated , joked with a phrase that is usually linked to people of a certain age: “Before, all this was countryside”, I start . But it is not necessary to go to the old people of the place to remember what it has cost for the town, which is now close to 50,000 inhabitants, to recover this part of the old Porzuna stream valley , more than an open field (it housed the fair) during years. With the opening, starting at 8:30 p.m., a project aimed at sewing the main areas of Mairena (from Ciudad Expo to Los Alcores) and which had been pending for almost two decades, materializes.
Provided for in the PGOU of 2003, in 2008 a first ideas contest was drawn up that the 2010 crisis left in the drawer. It resumes in 2016. The works started in 2018 after a tender in which 20 companies bid. But it suffered another stoppage: Aljarafesa pipes appeared, underground high-tension cables that were not counted on and everything coincided with the works of the South Round. Reformed the project, the works picked up pace in the pandemic and have just concluded after an investment of municipal funds from urban planning income of 5.2 million euros , 18% more than the amount for which they were awarded (4.8 million euros), but 30% less than the tender that was drawn in its day.
Aware of the milestone, for which it was also necessary to negotiate with building owners in the area, the mayor of Mairena del Aljarafe, the socialist Antonio Conde, recognized himself “excited” before a group of children who, representing the schools, have helped uncover the commemorative plaque. It ends with an “urban void” that was “with its back to the city” to form a space “that unites us all”, which seeks to promote “meetings” between families of all life and those who have chosen Mairena to live , thinking of a city “for the future”, more “friendly and sustainable”, he stated.
Among the most emblematic aspects of this park is that with it a part of the underground channel of the Porzuna stream has been recovered, maintaining its trough orography. In the 20 hectares where the work has been carried out, 500 trees have been planted, still small (up to 14 kilometers of irrigation pipes have been installed) but which should form a green lung and shaded area around several “islands” or endowments for children’s games and for other sporting or recreational activities.
With the trees of the South phase, which has been undertaken by the Guadalquivir Hydrographic Confederation (CHG), there are a thousand. With the southern phase and the Porzuna Park, Mairena already has a total of 42 green hectares of this type.
There are three pedestrian bridges over the riverbed, currently without water. Around 2,000 cubic meters of stone have been installed on the breakwaters.
Outside the park enclosure, the new bike lane has been left. It is also preceded by a 5,000-meter esplanade that is perhaps the most controversial part of the project, due to the lack of shade, and because the stream is still buried there, but which has been given this configuration so that it can host open-air events. Everything is just across the street from the Metro Expo City stop.
Antonio Conde has advanced that, shortly, the City Council will begin to work on that second phase in the area of ​​the Porzuna stream that the CHG has already recovered and where the Consistory only has to make specific changes to make it more accessible and integrate it with the North zone, although it is already open to the public and in use.
The councilor plans a meeting with the CHG in which he also wants to propose the recovery of the gallery park that is on the other side of the esplanade or Plaza de la Memoria, on the land to which the City Council was going to move ( something that was ruled out), with the aim of giving continuity to the walk and the bike path around the natural bed of the stream to the PISA and the highway to Bormujos.
