The Territorial Commission for Urban Planning of Valencia has definitively approved the Cultural Section of the Catalogue of Protections of Alpuente, an oceanic document due to its content and the large number of elements it contains, of a paleontological, archaeological, ethnological, architectural and Democratic Memory nature. The protection of such a significant number of assets has been possible thanks to the trust placed by the Alpuente City Council in the AUG-ARQUITECTOS, SLP team, editor of the Cultural Section of the Protection Catalogue and the unwavering will of the editor team to achieve the proposed objective, that is, the final approval that has finally been achieved. Identifying, visiting, describing and justifying the protection of 1,239 elements is not only a huge task, but also reflects the will of the people affected and the promoting council to support the preservation and protection of such a rich and well-preserved heritage.
The approved document provides, in fourteen volumes that include thousands of pages and hundreds of plans, a lot of information on the heritage that is the object of protection, always from the perspective of reconciling the protection of the heritage with its use. The protection of the heritage that is sought cannot become a deterrent to the normal use of the heritage. This assertion, which must be defended in general, makes more sense in a municipality of the Rural System and only 659 inhabitants, which faces the demographic challenge and where initiatives to stimulate the economy are difficult to promote. In this context, the implementation of the heritage wealth of a municipality such as Alpuente can contribute to the economic sustainability of the town.
The approval of the Cultural Section of the Catalogue of Protections of Alpuente, which is an integral part of the General Structural Plan, has taken place eight years after the start of the works and has also required a significant effort on the part of the various technicians of the Ministry responsible for Culture who have informed the document.