National Heritage has awarded a minor contract for €29,893.98 to improve the irrigation of the Parterre Garden in Aranjuez to Valoriza, the same company executing the comprehensive restoration for €4 million.
The State Contracting Platform has published a minor contract from National Heritage to improve the efficiency of irrigation in the Parterre Garden of Aranjuez, awarded to Valoriza Environmental Services for €29,893.98 including taxes. The announcement, dated 25 August 2026, has reopened criticism from the local opposition over the repeated selection of the same company developing the garden restoration project.
The municipal group Independent Citizen Group for Aranjuez (acipa) has denounced that this award, processed through the minor contract route, adds to previous ones with the same beneficiary. The spokesperson for acipa, Jesús Mario Blasco, pointed out that the restoration project, presented as a “landscape intervention” of around €4 million, already included among its objectives the installation of automated irrigation.
We are unable to understand the reasons that lead National Heritage to make minor contracts (and this is not the first time) to award them to the same company responsible for the comprehensive restoration project of the Parterre Garden when we are talking about a macroproject of ‘landscape intervention’ of approximately €4 million. For it to be an ambitious, rigorous, and sustainable commitment that will change the heart of the city, in the words of the Director of Real Estate and Natural Environment of National Heritage… we are observing that the expectation and reality are very far apart.
Blasco has questioned whether the original budget for the work already included these actions or if they are unforeseen circumstances. “Was the original budget not sufficient to carry out these actions? Did the original project not contemplate this? Have there been unforeseen circumstances? Doubts that undoubtedly require clarification from National Heritage,” the councillor raised.
The independent formation has also criticized other aspects of the development of the works, such as the removal of the vases that topped the pilasters of the perimeter wall, without any explanation of the reasons. “We assume that there is no conservation issue with them, as they are mostly replicas… but even so, they have been removed without sufficiently explaining the reasons,” Blasco added.
The garden, declared a Asset of Cultural Interest and part of the cultural landscape of Exceptional Universal Value of Aranjuez, has been subject to a restoration that acipa considers disappointing. The spokesperson reminded that in the February plenary, their group requested that the sculptural groups not linked to the fountains remain in the garden, an initiative that did not receive support from the two major parties.
From acipa we have been extraordinarily prudent, we have waited for the works to finish or be very close to completion as they are now… and the result seems quite disappointing to us. We are talking about an Asset of Cultural Interest and a space of Exceptional Universal Value, and the landscape intervention in an exceptional space must also be exceptional, and it seems to us, based on what we have seen, quite far from that. We will provide a full response to this matter later, and based on what we saw in the February plenary, we will have to do it without the participation of the two major parties. Let us remember that in that plenary we requested that the sculptural groups not linked to the fountains never leave the Garden, with little success as neither of the two major parties approved the initiative. And this is not about colours, it is about respect for the Heritage of all human beings, as is that of Aranjuez.
From acipa, they have announced that they will provide a “full response” to this situation in the coming days, once the works are completed. Meanwhile, the residents of Aranjuez are still waiting for National Heritage to clarify whether the irrigation contract responds to an unforeseen need or a planning error.
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