New Malaga footbridge to be installed in September after more than two years of waiting

The city's planning department said the delay to the bridge, located near the CAC gallery, was due to design changes and difficulties in sourcing steel

JESÚS HINOJOSA

Monday, 18 July 2022, 20:47

More than two years after Malaga City Council contracted its execution, in November 2020, the new pedestrian bridge over the Guadalmedina, by the Contemporary Art Centre (CAC), has still not been built.

Following a motion tabled by PSOE councillor Mariano Ruiz in the plenary committee on territorial planning held on Monday, 18 July, the councillor for Urban Planning, Raúl López, announced that the new CAC bridge "will be installed in September".

López justified the latest delays due to the "shortage of materials" caused by the war in Ukraine. "Before it was covid and now the war, but the necessary materials are in place and after the summer the bridge can be installed," he said.

"We would have been delighted if there had not been these delays, but sometimes there are things that cannot be controlled," added the councillor.

The CAC bridge tender was awarded in November 2020 to the temporary union of the companies Construcciones Garrucho and Tevaseñal, from Cadiz and Jaén, respectively, for an amount of 490,039 euros, and a completion period of three months. However, in September 2021, a cost overrun of 73,468 euros was approved due to the changes introduced in the project by the Urban Planning Department to guarantee accessibility to the footbridge. These changes took a long time to be negotiated with the construction companies, in terms of technical characteristics and budget, in order to define a modified project.

The current cost of the work now amounts to 563,507 euros. Raúl López explained that the contract could have been cancelled and the construction of the bridge put out to tender again, but he argued that this would have meant doubling the costs, as the original budget would have had to be adapted to current market prices. "We have tried to help the construction companies to find the materials, that have delayed us, but I think we have done the right thing," he said.

The new bridge will have a state-of-the-art design based on metal trusses wrapped by a double skin of perforated aluminium. At the western end, it will be crowned by a tower symbolising an access to the Perchel. López sais he is confident that the finished footbridge "will be well accepted by the local residents".

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