The President of the Diputación de Albacete, Santiago Cabañero, and the Vice President and responsible for the Area of Works, Fran Valera, presented this Friday to the mayors of La Manchuela the set of actions that will be carried out on the Provincial Road Network this year in the region.
The meeting took place at the Town Hall of Casas-Ibáñez, where Cabañero and Valera had the opportunity to exchange views and explain details about the different actions with the municipal representatives of the towns where the projects will be executed, as reported by the Diputación in a press release.
With the exception of Navas de Jorquera, Carcelén, Villavaliente, and Casas de Juan Núñez, the mayors of the following towns attended the meeting: Casas Ibáñez, Jose María García; Villatoya, Llanos Sanchez; Cenizate, Enrique Navarro; Fuentealbilla, Amparo Cuesta; Valdeganga, Fermín Gómez; Casas de Juan Núñez, Juan Carlos Gómez; Jorquera, Pilar Medina; Mahora, Antonio Martínez; Alcalá del Júcar, Juan Pascual Muñoz; and the councilor for works of La Recueja, Julio Haya.
The works are part of the resolution of the Secretary of State for Territorial Policy, dated October 9, 2024, which allocated grants to repair the damages caused by the DANA that affected several regions of the country in August and September 2023. The Diputación de Albacete was approved for the 15 projects presented for its Provincial Road Network, 13 of which correspond to La Manchuela, with a total investment of almost 10,000,000 euros, financed equally by the Diputación and the Government of Spain.
HALF OF THE PROVINCIAL ROAD NETWORK RUNNING THROUGH LA MANCHUELA
As the provincial president specified, the approved projects cover the repair of about 110 kilometers of roads in the region, with a special focus on the Júcar riverbank. This area was particularly affected by the meteorological events of 2023 and requires this investment that will significantly transform its road infrastructure, improving connectivity and road safety.
«We know it is a very ambitious plan, but it was necessary; improving roads is important because they provide road safety, first of all; but we also need them to be an economic resource, to attract tourism, and, of course, for those who live in our towns to be able to move throughout the province under the best possible conditions,» said the president, who announced that work has already begun on the AB-200 road (Valdeganga to N-322 via Mariquillas), and preliminary cleaning tasks are being carried out on the AB-106 (Navas de Jorquera-Ledaña) and the AB-107 (Cenizate-Fuentealbilla). It is expected that all projects will be completed in the first half of this year.
Santi Cabañero emphasized that this investment marks a milestone in the territorial structuring of the area and the province, stating that «an unprecedented transformation» is being carried out in the Road Network, providing La Manchuela and the rest of the territory with «modern, safe, and future-ready infrastructures.»
Additionally, both the president and the vice president highlighted the efficiency in managing these funds and, above all, «the effort» of the technical team of the Diputación, whose work has been key in drafting and approving the projects that secured the funds.
A plan that the vice president and head of Works described as a «revolution» in the roads of La Manchuela. «We have been on a very upward trend in terms of investing in roads, but it is true that this investment had never been so concentrated in one territory.
Given everything that is the Júcar riverbank, from Valdeganga, passing through Alcalá, Jorquera, La Recueja will mean a tremendous revolution, and also in other areas of the region, such as Villatoya or Casas Ibáñez (which are indeed access points to nuclei that could be considered ‘secondary’ on paper, but with the same dignity to be able to access with guarantees to, above all, provide public services in the best way possible). The most striking thing today, in addition to the amounts, is concentrating that investment in a specific point that needed it.»
In this sense, he pointed out that in the province’s roads (which, logistically, he explained that the Road Service itself divides into four zones), the mountains have been where the efforts have been focused the most because, probably, in terms of access, the provincial roads are a priority as there are not many alternatives, with the rest of the roads playing a more secondary role.
«A REVOLUTION» IN THE AREA
«We had never been able to, in the same area, concentrate such a large investment that I think will be a real revolution, as we said, for safety, but also for promotion; we are in the region that has the most visited municipality, probably, in the province (Alcalá del Júcar) and I think it will be a significant economic boost for all the municipalities in the area,» he reiterated.
Issues to which, on behalf of the mayors of the region, the mayor of Casas Ibáñez, as the ‘host’ town of this meeting, added another factor to consider: «As the president and vice president of the Diputación said, this investment will have an impact, obviously, on road safety, and also has an economic impact that, above all, affects tourism, but also agriculture with the improvement of accesses to farms and related companies,» stated José María García.
He also thanked, on behalf of all the towns in the area, the response that the Diputación, together with the Government of Spain, has had to «the meteorological phenomenon that occurred in 2023, with the September DANA that we especially suffered in this region.»
The approved projects and their allocated amounts are: AB-106 (Navas de Jorquera-Ledaña): 500,000 euros AB-107 (Cenizate-Fuentealbilla) 939,400 euros AB-200; (Valdeganga to N-322 via Mariquillas) 1,361,250 euros; AB-201 (Jorquera-Mahora via Bormate) 1,364,000 euros; AB-206 (Alcozarejos-Jorquera via Cubas) 1,209,600 euros; AB-209 (Jorquera-Alcalá del Júcar) 1,246,400 euros AB-210 (La Recueja-Villavaliente) 964,000 euros; AB-1000 (Casas Ibáñez-Tabaqueros) 607,000 euros; AB-1001 (Casas Ibáñez-La Derrubiada) 427,770 euros; AB-2002 (Villatoya-Cilanco) 362,350 euros; AB-2009 (Access to La Recueja via Puente Júcar) 38,200 euros AB-2010; (Jorquera-AB 204) 120,700 euros; AB-2012 (Carcelén-Valencia Limit via La Hunde) 271,000 euros.
A «HISTORIC» INVESTMENT IN ROAD INFRASTRUCTURE
As highlighted by Cabañero, this set of actions represents a «radical transformation» of half of the kilometers of provincial roads running through La Manchuela as well as the entire Road Network of the Diputación, whose Government Team has promoted an unprecedented investment in recent years in the field of road improvement.
In the period 2021-2025, the institution will have allocated more than 30 million euros to the improvement of roads under its ownership, renewing over 400 kilometers (a third of the Provincial Road Network). A striking figure by itself, but even more so when considering that between 2011 and 2021, only 2.5 million euros were invested in these infrastructures.
Thus, in 2021, around 6.6 million euros were allocated for this purpose; in 2022, nearly 8 million euros; in 2023, almost 3 million euros; in 2024, around 4 million euros; and this year, 10 million euros.