Mental health in Sagunto: council demands the Generalitat report on the CRISOL and plaza Ibérica
Sagunto's council voted unanimously to ask the Generalitat for formal information on the children and youth centre at plaza Ibérica, the CRISOL and the CEEM, requested for more than twenty years.
The October plenary session of Sagunto City Council has unanimously asked the Generalitat Valenciana (the regional government) to report on the state of three mental health facilities the city has been requesting for years: a children and youth mental health centre in the former school building on plaza Ibérica, the CRISOL and the CEEM. The motion was presented by Iniciativa Porteña (a local party from Puerto de Sagunto, the coastal district), defended by its spokesperson Eduardo Márquez, and received an amendment from the Partido Popular in its operative part.
The agreement asks the Generalitat for three specific things: the actions taken so far, the budget forecast and the estimated timetable for building each centre. The council also asks the Mayor's Office to report on the contacts it has made or received from the Generalitat since December 2025, when the agreement now being revived was approved, and to send it again, together with this request, to the relevant regional ministries in order to get an explicit reply on planning.
On the medical side, the motion relies on World Health Organization data. In 2023 around 1.2 billion people were living with a mental disorder, and 14.3% of young people aged 10 to 19 have one. The WHO's own breakdown is more specific: anxiety affects 4.1% of adolescents aged 10 to 14 and 5.3% of those aged 15 to 19, and depression affects 1.3% and 3.4% respectively. The motion insists that prevention, early detection and proper care stop problems from becoming chronic and affecting personal, educational and working development.
The local demand is old. As early as 2004 and 2005, the creation of a Centre for Rehabilitation and Social Integration (CRIS), a Specific Centre for people with Mental Illness (CEEM) and children's and youth mental health services was being proposed. Proposals for locations followed, and even the handover of municipal land. In December 2017 the council voted unanimously to repeat its request for a CRIS within the municipality, on a plot already ceded to the regional health ministry. At the time, some patients from Sagunto and Puerto de Sagunto travelled to the CRIS in Puçol, which serves l'Horta Nord and the Camp de Morvedre district. That motion, driven by the association APROSAM, also noted that Sagunto Hospital had only nine beds to treat people with serious mental illness. That is a 2017 figure, not a current statistic.
The Convivint plan for social services infrastructure 2021-2025 opened a new opportunity, because it provided for a CRIS and a CEEM in Sagunto. In that plan the Generalitat set aside 74 million euros for centres for people with mental health problems, within a total of 561 million euros and 247 facilities across the Valencian Community. Even so, the Sagunto facilities never materialised. Today the CRIS concept has evolved into the CRISOL, the Centre for Recovery and Social and Employment Inclusion for people with serious mental health problems, aimed at independence, recovery and social and working inclusion.
The other front is the building on plaza Ibérica. According to elperiodic.com in December 2025, the council then unanimously approved, on a proposal by Iniciativa Porteña, urging the Generalitat to refurbish the former school as a children and youth mental health centre and to recover the last proposed location for the CRISOL next to the CEEM. That month's motion argued that mental health is the health area receiving the least investment in the system and that the municipality had fallen far behind. Ten months later, the council itself admits that there has not been enough progress on the school building.
Anyone who needs these services will not see immediate change. What was approved now does not create any centre or commit any funds: it obliges the council to ask for answers and the Mayor's Office to report back to the plenary on whatever the Generalitat replies. The municipal note sets no deadline for that reply. The next signal to watch is whether the regional ministries answer in writing with a budget forecast and a timetable, which is exactly what the council has been asking for since December. According to aytosagunto.es and elperiodic.com, with data from the 2017 Sagunto council agreement, the Generalitat and the WHO.