Albox takes a step towards its new health centre: 10,000 square metres next to the care home for the elderly
Albox’s full council meeting unanimously approves allowing 10,000 square metres next to the new care home for the elderly to host its future health centre.
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Albox’s new health centre now has somewhere to be built, although it still has no date. The full council meeting has unanimously approved the planning project (proyecto de actuación) that allows 10,000 square metres, bought by Albox Town Council in 2024 in sectors 2 and 3, next to the new care home for the elderly, to be used for care and health facilities, as the town council itself has reported.
It is one of the main demands of the residents of the most populous municipality in the Almanzora Valley, with 12,799 inhabitants as of 1 January 2025, according to the INE, Spain’s National Statistics Institute. The plot, according to the town council’s statement, has good transport links and access, parking and enough space for new public services.
“Our municipality has grown and has needs that cannot be addressed with a short-term vision. Albox needs a new Health Centre”, said the mayor, María del Mar Alfonso.
What about the current centre?
The commitment to a new building comes after the refurbishment of the health centre currently in use was halted. According to the mayor, one of her team’s first steps was to resolve the construction company’s breaches on that project and to agree with the Andalusian regional government (Junta de Andalucía) to halt it, in order to seek a solution with a view to the future.
The debate goes back a long way. In May 2023, the Junta announced €2.3 million to refurbish the current centre, and its health delegate in Almería explained that a new one could have been built with around four million, but that there was no municipal plot on which to do so, as La Comarca Noticias reported at the time. That plot is the one that has now been set aside.
What now?
The planning project is an urban planning procedure: it opens the door to that land being used for a health facility. The town council will continue with the procedures to make it available to the Junta, which is the authority responsible for healthcare and the one that would have to design and build the new centre. For now, the municipal statement does not mention timescales or a budget.
“We will keep working, knocking on whatever doors are necessary and collaborating with the Junta so that we can move forward towards the Health Centre that our residents have been demanding for so long”, the mayor concluded.
