Compromís seeks a united front in Sagunto for over €20 million in educational infrastructure
Compromís wants to bring together parties, unions and the education community of Sagunto to demand more than €20 million in educational infrastructure from the Generalitat, with the CIPFP Eduardo Merello refurbishment as the main demand.
Compromís wants Sagunto to go into negotiations with the Generalitat (the Valencian regional government) as one voice on its schools. The Valencianist municipal group proposes bringing together political parties, trade unions, the education community and residents' associations in a united front to demand more than €20 million for educational infrastructure. The proposal will be formalised in a motion that the group will bring to the city council plenary session in October.
For students and families, the debate boils down to one figure and one deadline. The figure: in September 2025 the City Council itself spoke of more than 400 vocational training (Formación Profesional, FP) students on a waiting list in Sagunto; it is a year-old figure, not one for the current school year. The deadline: after meeting the General Directorate of Educational Infrastructure in February 2026, the City Council said the forecast for starting work at the Merello is early 2028. It is a forecast reported in the municipal notice, not a firm commitment, and the published information on Compromís's proposal includes no works date.
The most visible demand concerns the CIPFP Eduardo Merello, the vocational training school (Formación Profesional) in Puerto de Sagunto (coastal district), where the work planned under the Plan Edificant (the programme of building works in schools) has still not been carried out. In the motion, Compromís will ask the City Council to urge the regional Education Ministry (Conselleria) to withdraw the appeal on points of law (recurso de casación) lodged against the ruling of the Superior Court of Justice of the Valencian Community (TSJCV). That ruling voids the declaration of lesividad (a formal declaration that an earlier administrative decision harmed the public interest) that had frozen the investment.
Compromís's spokesperson on the council, Maria Josep Picó, argues that the start of the school year once again highlights the need for new schools and for work on existing ones. Picó calls the situation at the Merello 'especially serious' and criticises the Generalitat for appealing the ruling. According to her, the project had a budget of €13 million approved under the previous regional government, known as the Botànic, and, in her view, it is a project the PP (People's Party) froze three years ago. She also regards the Plan Edificant investments in accessibility and air conditioning as still pending.
The spokesperson also calls for more pressure from the city government on the Generalitat. She says that two years have passed since the powers were handed back to the Conselleria without any progress, and she believes current funding is not enough to advance the drafting of the project.
Municipal documents let us follow the thread of the refurbishment. In September 2025 the City Council described the project as being at a stage before drafting, with a budget line set aside for that task in the 2025 budget. In February 2026 it said the Conselleria had finished drafting the programa de necesidades (needs programme) for the school, the preliminary document that defines what spaces the building requires. The works project itself is a separate phase: Compromís argues that current funding is not enough to advance its drafting, and the sources consulted do not indicate that an execution project exists yet.
The city government, run by the PSPV-PSOE (Valencian Socialists), also offers a different reading of the part of the demand that concerns new schools. In that same February 2026 notice it explained that, as regards building the new secondary school (instituto), the Planning report had been favourable; by contrast, the Educational Planning Service (Servicio de Planificación Educativa) had issued a new assessment report that did not recognise the need for a new infant and primary school (CEIP).
Compromís links the Merello refurbishment to the need to expand vocational training places in the city and speaks of a shortage of places, without putting a number on it. The only figure available is the municipal one from September 2025 cited above.
The united-front proposal also includes a calendar of actions to inform residents, open spaces for dialogue and press for the pending works. The more than €20 million is, according to the group itself, the sum of the new schools Sagunto needs, the pending Plan Edificant works and the full refurbishment of the Eduardo Merello. The available information does not say how much goes to each item beyond the €13 million for the Merello, does not yet include a reply from the Conselleria of Education, and does not give the exact date of the October plenary session, where the other groups will have to take a position on the proposal. According to elperiodicodeaqui.com and elperiodic.com, with data from City Council notices of September 2025 and February 2026.