The Socialist Municipal Group of Antequera denounces that the new wastewater treatment plant, announced in 2022 with an investment of €30 million, is still not tendered. Councillor Kiko Calderón estimates that six cubic hectometres of water are lost each year for the vega.
The Socialist Municipal Group of Antequera has denounced that the new wastewater treatment plant, promised by the Popular Party in 2022, continues to remain untendered four years later. Councillor Kiko Calderón has demanded that the procedures be expedited to stop the loss of six cubic hectometres of water per year that could be allocated to the Antequera vega.
The project, with an announced investment of €30 million, also included the tertiary cycle and additional treatment plants in several outlying areas of the municipality. According to Calderón, the delay is the responsibility of the joint management of the PP in the City Council and the Andalusian Government.
A promise that has been delayed since 2022
The Popular Party first announced the construction of a new treatment plant for Antequera in 2022. Two years later, in 2024, the governing team held a press conference to present an expanded project, with an investment of €30 million that included the tertiary cycle and additional treatment plants in several outlying areas of the municipality.
In 2025, following a public complaint from the PSOE about the lack of progress, the municipal government assured that the project was already drafted and ready for processing. A year later, in 2026, the tender has still not been published, as Calderón reported.
“That is the management of the Popular Party both in the Antequera City Council and in the Andalusian Government regarding wastewater treatment in Antequera and with the farmers.”
Once the tender is published, the procedure includes the submission of bids by interested companies, the technical and economic evaluation of the proposals, and the final awarding of the works. Only after completing these administrative procedures could the construction of the new treatment plant begin.
The lost water that the vega needs
The PSOE estimates that six cubic hectometres of water are lost annually due to the lack of a treatment plant with a tertiary cycle. This flow, according to the municipal group, could be used in the crops of the Antequera vega if the project were to come into operation.
The Antequera vega concentrates a large part of the irrigated area of the region, with herbaceous and horticultural crops that depend on the available water supply each season. The tertiary cycle is an additional treatment of purification that allows the resulting water to be reused for agricultural irrigation, instead of being discharged into waterways.
Calderón called on the Popular Party to expedite all pending procedures so that the new treatment plant, along with the facilities planned in the outlying areas of the municipality, becomes a reality and the treated water can be allocated to local agriculture.
This demand is part of a broader debate on irrigation infrastructure in the region, which also follows the development of the Futuraqua project for the modernization of irrigation in the Antequera vega.
The governing team of the Popular Party has not yet commented on these figures or on a projected tender date. Meanwhile, the farmers of Antequera continue to wait for the water that escapes each year due to the lack of a treatment plant with a tertiary cycle to irrigate their fields.
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