The Teguise City Council has warned of the danger of the state of the tower of the Guadalupe Church, a situation that is not new and dates back to 2011, but to which no solution has yet been found. For this reason, the mayor of Teguise, Oswaldo Betancort, and the Councilor for Heritage of the City Council, Olivia Duque, met with the Vicar General of the Diocese of the Canary Islands, Hipólito Cabrera, to try to provide an answer to this situation.
The Consistory has acknowledged in a press release that the residents of the municipality had shown "their concern" about the state of this infrastructure, which continues to deteriorate without the promised works having been undertaken for years. In the meeting, in addition to Betancort, Duque and the vicar, the general director of Heritage of the Government of the Canary Islands, Aurelio González, and the Heritage Councilor of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, Juan Antonio de la Hoz, were also present.
And it is that, according to the Consistory, neither the City Council nor the Church can now face all this rehabilitation of the tower, which suffers significant deterioration. "If we had money or a large budget, we would do it," Olivia Duque told La Voz. Something similar happens to the Diocese of the Canary Islands, which is the one that would have to invest in this work, but right now "it is suffering social needs." For this reason, both institutions asked the Cabildo and the Government of the Canary Islands for collaboration in this meeting at the Spínola Palace.
"If we all join forces, we could start walking and make some progress," said Duque, who explained that this meeting raised the "importance of starting a project that specifies what needs to be done to know the real state of the tower and what interventions are necessary." And it is that last year the bells even had to be removed due to the risk of them falling due to the poor condition of the support.
The Cabildo will also send Teguise several recommendations to alleviate this situation, such as how to solve the droppings of pigeons "that corrode the stone a lot" or solve the "poor condition" of the wood of the balconies, or the lichens that have come out due to humidity.
A project of about 600,000 euros
The City Council has committed to start maintenance after receiving advice from the Cabildo. In addition, the four parties have agreed to meet in a month to see what budget this rehabilitation should have, a figure that will be provided by the Diocese of the Canary Islands. In a first estimate, the drafting of the project could cost around 30,000 or 40,000 euros, while the execution of the works would amount to around 600,000 euros.
"There is a good predisposition on the part of the Church, which will be in charge of doing the project. We are in the middle of the year, with the budgets of the institutions that have already been approved, but we hope that the Government of the Canary Islands and the Cabildo will find the possibility of enabling a item," Olivia Duque trusted.
The councilor also recalled that some fences were placed outside the church as exhibition panels to avoid any type of risk due to the fall of debris. "We received a report from the Local Police and another from the Cabildo on the state of the tower. Before being able to start the rehabilitation, we put up the panels with images of the historical complex and the culture of Teguise," said the mayor, who also warned that one of the technicians has already indicated that if the works are prolonged, it would be necessary to "expand the perimeter of the fence."