Estepona is one of the Andalusian municipalities with the highest level of execution of European funds.

The Estepona City Council completes the execution of 90% of the project ‘Estepona, Garden of the Costa del Sol’, which included the consolidation of the old town as one of the main tourist attractions of the city, the improvement of public facilities and modernization of municipal facilities and new technologies.

Estepona City Council has successfully completed 89.65% of the execution of the project ‘Estepona, Garden of the Costa del Sol’ for which it received in 2016 a grant of 10 million euros through the European Regional Development Funds for Sustainable and Integrated Urban Development (ERDF-EDUSI). These grants were intended for the implementation, in several phases until 2023, of this initiative. In this way, it becomes one of the Andalusian municipalities with the highest degree of execution of European funds.

The project, which has been carried out with 20% municipal co-financing, contemplated the consolidation of the old town as one of the main tourist attractions of the city, the improvement of public equipment and facilities and the modernization of municipal offices through the incorporation of new technologies.

The European funds have made possible the execution of actions such as the remodeling of the Avenida de Andalucía, section from Avenida España to Camino de los Molinos (1,799.745 euros); the remodelling of Avenida España in its sections from Avenida Juan Carlos I to Calle Terraza and from this to Avenida Andalucía (1,762,365 euros); the remodelling of the promenade between Juan Carlos I and Avenida Andalucía (2,095,181 euros), or the remodelling of streets in the historic quarter (1,778,000 euros).

Likewise, these grants have been used to carry out energy rehabilitation works in different municipal buildings such as the La Lobilla Pavilion, the Padre Manuel Cultural Center, the Francisco Muñoz Pérez Football Stadium, the El Carmen sports center and the Local Police facilities. In this way it has managed to reduce energy consumption, reduce CO2 emissions into the atmosphere, the carbon footprint, and therefore, environmental pollution, thus contributing to sustainability, while there has been a significant economic savings for the municipal coffers.

A great impulse has also been given to the electronic administration project, whose main objective is to bring new technologies closer to the citizens so that they can interact with the City Council in a simple and efficient way and with all the guarantees. In this sense, the new technological platform of the City Council has been implemented for citizen attention, a new system of previous appointments, a personnel software, an employee and human resources portal, the territorial information system of the City Council (GIS), a new traffic monitoring system, remote management for public lighting, and a new software for the Local Police. In total, the amount invested in this area amounts to 2,178,482 euros.

Estepona obtained this financial aid from the European Regional Development Funds (ERDF) after presenting a Sustainable and Integrated Urban Development Strategy (EDUSI). The receipt of this grant was possible because the Consistory is up to date in its payment obligations with Social Security and the Tax Agency.

All these initiatives that have been promoted have meant progress in a city model that began in 2012 and has turned Estepona into a more competitive tourist destination, with better facilities and more attractive to investors and entrepreneurs.