Canet d'en Berenguer negotiates a permanent Guardia Civil barracks in the old Hogar del Jubilado
Canet d'en Berenguer, a neighbouring town of Sagunto in the Camp de Morvedre district, is negotiating a permanent Guardia Civil barracks. Funding and the opening date are still open.
The town council of Canet d'en Berenguer, a coastal town in the Camp de Morvedre district next to Sagunto, wants Guardia Civil (Spain's national gendarmerie) officers to be stationed in the village on a lasting basis again. Contacts with the force have gone on for more than eighteen months. They have matured lately, though two unknowns remain: where the money will come from and on what date the barracks could open.
The proposed site is the building that used to be the Hogar del Jubilado (a retirees' centre). The local government's arguments are practical: it is easy to reach from other towns, and the CV-3175 road links it with the beach.
There is a precedent. For years the force's post was in the beach area. Today the council reasons that the village is bigger and that far more people arrive in summer, hence its request.
The matter came up again at the council plenary session on 2 October. Mayor Pere Antoni reported that the dialogue is making progress and he trusts the return will come soon.
The numbers help explain his reasoning. Canet had 8,297 residents at the start of 2025, in a municipal area of 3.8 km², on the Mediterranean coast next to the mouth of the Palancia river. The mayor says the population has almost doubled in a few years and that in summer the figure tops 30,000, more than three times the usual level. That gap is the core of the council's view on how many security resources the village needs.
Antoni maintained that the Guardia Civil, in whose area Canet lies, is a necessity rather than a whim, and recalled that residents have been asking for it for some time.
Funding remains pending. For now two routes are being weighed: the Ministry of the Interior paying for the building's refit, or splitting the cost. With no opening date, anyone living in or near Canet cannot count on a timetable.
According to El Periódico de Aquí, with data from Wikipedia on the population of Canet d'en Berenguer.