Orihuela Costa maintenance contract

The Department of Infrastructures has put the contract for the maintenance of green spaces out to tender. The five-year contract for Orihuela Costa involves an investment of 1,910,700 euros per year.
The announcement was made by the Deputy Mayor, José Aix, and the Councillor for Infrastructures, Ángel Noguera, who explained the details of the new service.
Jose Aix said: “This is the most important contract of this legislature, the most necessary and with the greatest impact on our municipality. It is a contract that affects more than 2.5 million square meters and 213 green areas of Orihuela Costa. In addition, it has a significant economic impact since ten million euros are going to be invested in five years.”
The new contract will tackle the poor state of the green areas on the coast, where the service being provided currently is lacking. The councillors said that in a few months the contract would be awarded and that soon people should be able to see real and beneficial changes in our municipality, taking into account that the coast is one of the municipalities tourist attractions.
Ángel Noguera explained that the new service will cover one hundred percent of the green areas on the coast, when the previous contract only covered 40 percent. The service will have 30 operators, when there are only 12 at the moment and the amount of the contract will increase from 860,000 euros a year to 1.9 million. in Orihuela Costa alone there are 7,000 palm trees, many more than the total that are planted in the rest of the municipality.
The technical specifications includes maintenance of irrigation networks, maintenance of street furniture and carrying out relevant works. The company is responsible for pruning trees, replacing trees when necessary, maintenance and replanting of grass areas and the annual planting of seasonal flowers and flowering shrubs. Specifically, 2,500 seasonal flowers and bulbs will be planted each year, as well as 3,500 shrubs in municipally owned landscaped areas. The planting of 500 poinsettias has been included for Christmas. Attention will also be paid to the 13 unique trees that exist in Orihuela Costa and the palm trees located on public roads will be maintained through pruning and pest treatment.
The maintenance of leisure equipment and urban furniture such as wooden platforms, pergolas, fences, accesses, benches, tables, litter bins, bollards, etc all comes under the terms of the contact. The winning bidder will also be in charge of the maintenance of civil works, such as curbs, tree grates, stairs and the cleaning of scuppers, nets and sandboxes, especially in the rainy season.
Continuous maintenance of children’s rides will be carried out by painting, cleaning, adjusting parts, repairing surfaces and disinfecting. Thirty people work to provide the service. In addition, the company must have a fleet of vehicles made up of, among others, a truck, eight vans, a tractor and two irrigation tanks, as well as motorised cultivators, hedge trimmers or brush-cutters. It must also have the precise machinery for the treatment and elimination of pruning,
In order to provide the service with the quality requirements demanded by the City Council, the winning company must also establish an environmental and quality management system.