The Provincial Council of Almeria has held an informative conference to present the main keys and programmes of the Provincial Sports Plan 2024 to the local councils of Almeria with a population of less than 20,000 inhabitants. This document, which sets out the strategy of the Department of Sport, Healthy Living and Youth for this year, was unanimously approved at the last plenary session and, as a fundamental objective, aims to promote physical activity as a healthy lifestyle habit in every corner of the province.
The new Provincial Sports Plan has more than doubled its budget compared to the previous year, from 2.1 million in 2023 to more than 5.4 million this year. To articulate this investment, five lines of action have been configured: healthy living, maintenance, sponsorship, financial assistance for technical sports services and equipment and the ambitious Retural project, Active Tourism Resources Network of the Province of Almeria Alpujarra and Sierra Nevada.
The Vice-President and Provincial Councillor for Sports, José Antonio García, explained that this year’s Plan «has very new aspects and for this we have the highest budget we have had in recent years. For this year we have created a new figure through which the town councils will be able to decide whether this financial assistance of 125,000 euros is going to be used for sports promoters, technical assistance or sports equipment.
García also thanked all the town councils and sports management staff for their commitment to promoting sports activities and infrastructures in the province and reminded the councils that «this plan has been designed taking into account the participatory process that took place at the end of last year. I ask you to think about sport in your towns and villages, to design your municipality so that sport becomes more and more attractive».
The Plan is committed to tourism sustainability strategies in destinations with sport as a channelling element, thereby helping to revitalise certain territories and fight against depopulation. More resources are allocated to direct economic assistance to municipalities, as well as to activity projects that have a direct impact on them, working on their sporting habits and on the creation of active environments that facilitate the practice of physical activity in their daily lives.
It also focuses on collaboration with the different entities in the provincial sports ecosystem (clubs, federations, associations of people with disabilities, companies in the sector, etc.), which are essential for implementing and carrying out activities in all municipalities and especially in those with less management capacity.
Finally, this conference has shown that local sport, municipal sports facilities, economic development, sports tourism and the third sector of sport, made up of sports associations, clubs and federations, school-age sport, in line with the search for social cohesion through sport, will be its areas of reference. With this plan, it is proposed and intended the orderly, temporary and quantified implementation of the set of resources that are going to be materialised through programmes, projects and actions that comprise it.
