The new majority declares the tender called by the previous corporation abandoned, considering it ‘hasty’ and ‘poorly thought out’.
The mayor of Sant Julià, Cerni Cairat, was already critical of the initiative to revitalise commerce when his predecessor, Josep Majoral, publicly announced it. And now the new communal majority has decided to abandon the idea. The formalisation of this rejection was to declare abandoned the international competition that was called at the end of August to find the companies that would support the so-called Programme of Incentives for the economic and social development of the parish. The project consisted of activating a mobile application that would allow shoppers in Lauredian establishments to obtain discounts. The tender was called in the form of a ‘competitive dialogue’, which allows more than one offer to be selected and collaborative work to be carried out between the chosen companies. But the proposal did not materialise before the previous mandate expired and now it will not.
El comú justified the decision yesterday because he considered the project ‘hasty and ill-considered’. He points out that it was not a proposal that appeared in the conclusions of the Pla de reactivació econòmica de l’activitat comercial urbana that the corporation commissioned in 2023 and that ‘it involves a very important investment that does not figure among the priorities of this 2024’. According to what was announced by the former councillor Josep Majoral at the time, an investment of around 200,000 euros was foreseen. One of the peculiarities of the system is that the administration assumed the discounts applied to the buyers. The model consisted of the buyer downloading the mobile application and going to a shop in the parish that was a member and making a purchase, automatically generated a discount in a kind of virtual currency that could then be used for a new purchase in another shop on the network.
The reaction of the then minority councillor Cerni Cairat questioned the proposal and described it as hasty. Cairat pointed out that the project had been approved without any prior study of the needs of the parish. Furthermore, he questioned a policy of generalised discounts at the corporation’s expense, understanding that a small shop should not be given the same consideration and support as the large stores located in the parish.
The community’s current commitment is that the parish ‘requires a long-term plan of action for commerce’. The Lauredian councillors met today with the president and director of the Chamber of Commerce, Josep Maria Mas and Sol Rossell, to discuss the commercial activity of the parish and the results of the work that the organisation has been carrying out. The two parties agreed to establish mechanisms to promote the dissemination of the actions of the Chamber among the entrepreneurs of the parish.
