The Girona City Council will have to postpone the planting of 150 trees that it planned to carry out between November of this year and March 2027 after the tender for the supply and digging of holes contract was declared void.
The paradox is that the city maintains a census of 33,381 living trees in 2024 and is preparing new replacements in places where specimens have already been removed due to the risk of falling, but it has not been able to close the contract that was supposed to cover precisely that replanting.
The tender was declared void despite an annual budget of 69,905.73 euros
The contract was divided into two lots. The digging of holes lot was for 19,905.72 euros and did not attract any companies, while the tree supply lot started at 50,000.01 euros.
Only one firm bid for this second lot. Cultius Mas Cuní SL, based in Bordils, was disqualified because it submitted the economic offer annex blank, with no data recorded, so the council could not know the real price it was proposing.
That result now forces the City Council to redo the entire process with 2026 prices. The new tender will start from an initial starting price of 69,905.73 euros per year and may include three extensions, raising the total budget to 260,003.35 euros.
The municipal forecast is to award the contract in January. From then on, the awarded company would have to carry out the work from the beginning of 2027 until March, within the vegetative rest period.
Les Pedreres and Lluís Pericot are among the priority points for replacement
The new planting will prioritize areas where the City Council has already removed trees due to the risk of falling or due to the death or accident of specimens. Among these are the roundabout on Lluís Pericot avenue at the intersection with Caldes de Montbui street and Les Pedreres park.
In that park, furthermore, there is a project that plans to replace 48 trees and add 22 new ones. The replacement planned for the coming months was intended to cover part of these losses and others recorded in different parts of the city.
The Girona Urban Tree Master Plan indicates that the city had 33,381 living trees in 2024. Of that total, 91.8% are classified as normal, 6.7% show alterations, and 1.4% are in a decadent state.
Sergi Cot, councilor for Climate Action, placed the replacement within the municipal tree planning.
"The objective of the council is to continue replanting trees in the most planned way possible so that the city moves towards a greener, more resilient model adapted to new climatic conditions and their impacts and consequences" - Sergi Cot, councilor for Climate Action, Girona City Council
The intervention in les Pedreres includes, for the moment, the replacement of 48 trees and the planting of 22 new ones, one of the details already set within the areas that the City Council wants to address when it resolves the new contract.