The summer pools of Peñuelas, in the Arganzuela district; Vicente de Bosque, in Fuencarral-El Pardo; Luis Aragonés, in Hortaleza, and the Vallecas Municipal Sports Center, in Puente de Vallecas, will remain closed this season, which will begin around May 15, to undertake different reforms, an official spokesperson for the City Council informs La Vanguardia. In total, up to 800,000 residents of the capital will not be able to enjoy their local swimming pools this summer. In addition, the opposition considers that the pool located on Paseo de la Direction, in the district of Tetuán will not open until August and the one in Vallehermoso, which is indirectly managed, will in principle open on June 1.
Sources from the Works and Equipment Area of the Madrid City Council assure that the first three are swimming pools that will have to remain closed to undertake improvements by the area. In the case of the outdoor pool at the Vallecas Municipal Sports Center, it is the responsibility of the district board and its reform is part of the comprehensive remodeling project of this municipal sports facility.
With an amount close to 700,000 euros, this phase includes the construction of a new ticket office building, the renovation of the water network, the repair of the purification system and the compensation basin of the Olympic pool and the conditioning of the areas beach At the end of this rehabilitation, landscaping works and new exterior fencing will be undertaken.
On the other hand, one of the ones that has raised the most complaints is Peñuelas, which serves a large part of the Arganzuela and Centro districts. The City Council is finishing drafting the project for the comprehensive reform that it is going to undertake in the summer pools of the Peñuelas Municipal Sports Center, they noted. The closure of this pool means that some 153,000 citizens will be left without a center where they can go for a swim. Hence, for example, Más Madrid has requested that the works be delayed and begin on September 16 of this year to conclude on May 14, 2025 and not before this summer, as initially planned.
The City Council stated a few days ago that it "is aware" of the inconvenience that this may entail but the objective is to provide users with "an optimal service and safe facilities", for which it is necessary to carry out this work.
The vice mayor of Madrid and acting mayor, Inma Sanz, stated yesterday that the capital's City Council is looking for alternatives to maximize the number of places in the municipal summer swimming pools.
In statements to journalists from the Arganzuela Greenhouse, the vice mayor responded to the Más Madrid spokesperson at City Hall, Rita Maestre, who criticized the closure of the Peñuelas summer pool, after she assured that of the 23 summer pools "six of them will not open their doors on May 15."
"No, it is false. They simply, once again, do not have the correct data. On Friday we had the opportunity to go to visit the end of the works on the Barajas swimming pools. This City Council had not incorporated new swimming pools for many years. Of course "In the four years that Manuela Carmena governed with Mrs. Maestre as spokesperson, not a single municipal swimming pool was built and many of them were closed," Sanz defended. More Madrid considers that there could be six because the one in the district of Tetuán, which was built in the nineties, "the council does not specify if it will be able to open it before May 15." The PSOE of Madrid believes that this facility will not open until August "because there are at least two months of work left."
According to opposition calculations, up to 800,000 residents are left without a nearby pool in the Centro, Retiro, Arganzuela, Salamanca, Chamartín and Chamberí districts.
