The mayor of Huelva, Gabriel Cruz; Accompanied by the Councilor for Employment, Economic Development and Strategic Planning, Jesús Manuel Bueno, announced today at a press conference that the City Council has managed to position the Huelva capital in the 'top' of pilot cities selected by the Government of Spain for the implementation of the Local Action Plans of the Spanish Urban Agenda. Huelva will be the beneficiary of a subsidy of 250,000 euros -the first Next Generation funds to arrive in the city- “for the quality of the project presented and the extensive experience we have in strategic planning”.
This is excellent news that, as the councilor has pointed out, becomes "an accelerator of the investments that we want to capture from the calls framed in the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, placing our city at the forefront of that change that at the globally we are called to promote in the 2030 horizon advancing towards more sustainable cities from the environmental, economic and social point of view, more friendly, resilient and full of opportunities”.
The councilor has valued the technical work of the Department of Employment, Economic Development and Strategic Planning, which has resulted in this advantageous position of the Huelva City Council in order to access post-covid recovery funds, in whose calls cities are more competitive they have an Urban Agenda Action Plan.
“The competition is tough and the work schedule is very demanding”, Cruz pointed out, advancing that the objective set is to have this document by the end of 2022, after a process “that has to be participated in with the entire Huelva society, through of economic and social agents. In this way, a roadmap "key for the ecological and digital transition that concerns us, for the qualification and revitalization of urban spaces, sustainable mobility, economic reactivation, etc" will be drawn up.
In the population range in which the city of Huelva is located (100,000-300,000 inhabitants), the Ministry of Transport, Environment and Urban Agenda has selected 22 municipalities as a pilot city. In the set of all the population sections, having attended 233 cities, the projects of 121 were pre-selected for their quality, uniqueness and exemplary capacity, so that they can become pilot projects transferable to other places.
“In our case, -as Cruz has pointed out- in addition to this qualitative aspect, the extensive experience we have in the field of strategic planning has been valued, since we are not starting from scratch, since in these last six years, in addition to the EDUSI, we have promoted the Huelva 2025 Strategic Plan, which we are adapting to the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs; the Culture Plan; the Strategic Trade Plan; the Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan; we are immersed in the revision of the PGOU; the Tourism Plan for Large Cities; and the Municipal Housing and Land Plan”.
In Cruz's words, "we are very proud of our pioneering commitment to strategic planning with which we want to move towards a more modern, dynamic, sustainable, intelligent city model... in short, one that takes care of people and the environment and that incorporate advanced technology into urban management, a Huelva that develops all of its potential but from balanced progress, leaving no one behind”. For this reason, referring to the motto of the Huelva project, the councilor pointed out that "we want our urban Agenda to be a human Agenda."
The Urban Agenda allows a coherent framework to be given to the projects that are being submitted to the Next Generation funds, oriented to the Sustainable Development Goals and the 2030 Agenda. For the moment, the Huelva City Council has presented a candidacy to generate low emission zones with pedestrian areas around the Plaza de las Monjas and Plaza San Pedro; for sustainable transport -electric buses, recharging points for them, intelligent canopies, Zafra's multimodal logistics node, etc-; for commerce and tourism, in addition to the project for the elaboration of the Pilot Project of the Local Action Plan of the Spanish Urban Agenda.
