TThe Territorial Commission of Urban Planning of Valencia has finally approved the Special Protection Plan for the castle of Cofrentes, considered a Site of Cultural Interest. Until recently, the space ordered by the plan has not received the attention it deserves and many actions have distorted it, introducing inappropriate actions in very sensitive places without the Administration being able to correct this tendency; even the public works in the castle, the church of San José or the urbanization of public spaces, were not always oriented in the right direction, perhaps due to the lack of an instrument that would set the guidelines for intervention, with greater sensitivity and with effective tools. The approval of this Special Protection Plan corrects all this, while responding to the legal mandate contained in the Law of Spanish Historical Heritage (1985) and the Law of Heritage of the Valencian Community (1998).
The main objective of the Special Protection Plan for Cofrentes Castle is to improve the environmental quality of the protected area, recovering the signs of vernacular architecture and urban morphology, so that the relationship between the castle and the surrounding urban fabric is established from the respect for the importance of the former, in the architectural aspect and the search for integration, within the whole and with the landscape. The assumption that it belongs to a unique urban space must preside over any intervention on it and in this sense, the landscape perception of the ordered area makes complete sense. Thus, there are interventions that at a short distance are unfortunate, while at a long distance they are very damaging. There are also actions that could be understood in another context, but not in the protection environment of the castle.
The plan was contracted to AUG-ARQUITECTOS, SLP in 2020, after the Valencian Community Department of Culture recognized the proposal for drafting the Special Plan with the maximum subsidy granted within the framework of the Resolution of August 31, 2020, of the General Directorate of Culture and Heritage, granting a subsidy for the preparation of the cultural heritage section of protection catalogs and the drafting of special protection plans and master plans for intervention in assets of cultural interest of the Valencian Community. On February 17, 2022, the Environmental Assessment Commission issued the Strategic Environmental and Territorial Report and now the Territorial Commission of Urban Planning of Valencia has resolved the final approval of the file. This plan abounds in the line of actions aimed at protecting the heritage that characterizes part of the work of AUG-ARQUITECTOS, SLP, a company that has authored several plans of this type and that actively works in the protection of heritage.