The bipartite activates a master plan that opens the door to the castle accesses with stairs and moving belt

This text will serve to establish the “rigorous and consistent recovery needs” of the different elements, as well as to establish “the sequence and priority of future interventions, both the most immediate and those that may arise as the comprehensive recovery is undertaken.” The contract specification, promoted by the City Council, includes the possibility of significant changes in a monument that received some 400,000 people each year before the pandemic and that intends to double visits with the outsourcing of management, which includes among its offer visits free guided tours every day (in Spanish and English) and dramatized visits on Sundays, in addition to Escape rooms from the castle story, along with exhibitions, conferences, workshops and shows for schoolchildren. With the company taking over from next Monday, the fortress will extend its hours, opening from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. from mid-September to the end of June, and from 10 a.m. to midnight in summer.

The specifications for the technical document drafting contract, which will have an execution period of nine months once it is awarded and a budget of close to 200,000 euros, opens the door to analyze “in depth and study” accessibility to the BIC of Mount Benacantil. This technical work, as required by the Municipal Tourist Board, must study new accessible and non-accessible pedestrian accesses, in urban transport and with non-polluting vehicles, such as scooters or electric bicycles. But not only that, from the Alicante City Council it is also requested to extend the debate to “possible iconic accessibility actions”, alluding to three options, such as stairs, moving belts or new elevators to facilitate the arrival at the castle for people with reduced mobility.

In addition to accessibility proposals both for the execution of the interventions, as well as for the cultural visit to the castle of Santa Bárbara, the Master Plan must provide proposals for “intervention prioritized and economically valued, periodic maintenance and management plans in the same sense and the design of posters and urban furniture to be used in future interventions».

With respect to pathological and diagnostic study of the current state of the Alicante castle, in order to address the choice of architectural restoration proposals, it is concluded that an analysis of «injuries» must be previously carried out.

vegetation and culture

Regarding the environmental situation, the Master Plan will also serve to study the plantations that currently affect the castle and, consequently, the possible substitution of improper elements for other plant species will be proposed, determining their compatibility. “The presence of possible invasive vegetation and its effects, as well as that which interferes negatively, will be analyzed singularly, indicating the causes, and they will be proposed where advisable,” according to the statement.

In terms of cultural management, it is also planned to promote studies that will focus on the analysis of human, tourist, economic, cultural, geographic, sociocultural resources, the relationships and connections of the property with other heritage resources and any other relevant aspect. .

From this analysis should be derived, according to the Municipal Tourist Board, “general conclusions that will ensure that the proposed works are adjusted to comprehensive planning, favoring that the recovery of the cultural asset is a profitable fact” for both citizens and the City Council from Alicante.

The team drafting the Master Plan must be made up of at least one architect, a Civil Engineer, a Civil Engineer, a Geography and History graduate, a technical architect and a specialist in tourism activities and promotion. In addition, given the technical complexity of the document, these professionals can add the collaboration of a graduate in Law, industrial engineers, Telecommunications and agronomists, as well as a graduate in Environmental Sciences.