Manilva Town Hall has held a new meeting of the Mesa del Agua (Water Committee) to address various pending issues relating to the extension of the contract with the company Hidralia for the management of the municipal drinking water supply and sewerage service, an extension approved at an extraordinary council meeting in December 2024.
The meeting was attended by the mayor, Mario Jiménez, together with councillors Marcos Ruiz, head of the Infrastructure and Works department, and Juan Carlos Morejón, head of Urban Planning, as well as municipal technicians and representatives of the concessionaire.
The meeting is part of the technical and administrative work needed to complete the ten-year extension of the contract with Hidralia, a decision that was approved at an extraordinary council meeting in December 2024 and is still being processed. At that session, the proposal went ahead with the votes in favour of the Partido Popular (PP) and Con Andalucía–Izquierda Unida, while Compromiso Manilva and VOX chose to abstain. The PSOE voted against, arguing its rejection of continuing with the current management model and warning that the measure could result in a rise of up to 76% in water bills for residents of Manilva.
The presence at the Mesa del Agua of councillor Juan Carlos Morejón, initially the representative of Izquierda Unida within the current governing team, again creates confusion about the position this party has held on the management of the service. IU had defended in its election manifesto the return of the service to public hands through the public company Acosol, which depends on the Mancomunidad de Municipios de la Costa del Sol Occidental, although it ultimately backed the extension of the contract with the private concessionaire at the 2024 council meeting.
One of the main issues discussed at the meeting was the updating of the inventory of municipal assets used by the concessionaire, an obligation set out in the contract extension itself. According to the Infrastructure and Works councillor, Marcos Ruiz, this inventory includes all the elements of the water network owned by the Town Hall, among them tanks, pumps, kilometres of pipes of various types, pressure units, chlorinators, water treatment plants, wells and other key infrastructure of the system.
To this end, an exhaustive technical report has been drawn up, involving fieldwork to review each of these elements. This process has made it possible to remove from the inventory infrastructure that has become obsolete or fallen into disuse, as well as to add new facilities and equipment incorporated into the municipal network over the last ten years.
Other issues relating to improving the service for residents were also addressed at the Mesa del Agua, both as regards the supply network and sanitation and stormwater infrastructure.
A improvement plan was also analysed, which includes various works and projects on the municipal network, a proposal that, after going through the Mesa del Agua, must subsequently be ratified by the council meeting.
According to the Infrastructure and Works councillor, these measures will allow the municipality’s water supply and sanitation network to continue to be modernised, being carried out gradually in line with the established planning.
The management of the water supply service thus returns to the forefront of municipal debate, especially after the ten-year extension of the contract with Hidralia was approved in 2024, when Compromiso Manilva, «now leading the Town Hall», decided to abstain.
