The four associations have criticized ADIF for awarding the new La Sagrera railway station project to the company that made the lowest bid, despite the fact that in ADIF’s own opinion this bidder submitted the worst technical bid.

The deans of the Associations of Architects, Economists, Civil Engineers and Industrial Engineers signed a statement on 24 February calling on ADIF to adhere to the assessment criteria agreed with the other public administrations in relation to the tender of projects for La Sagrera railway station.

They also reiterated their demand that the management of the execution of the La Sagrera project should be carried out, as has been the case so far, by Barcelona Sagrera Alta Velocitat SA, the company formed by the Ministry of Public Works, ADIF, the Government of Catalonia and Barcelona City Council.

In this respect, they criticized ADIF for making a unilateral decision on the rules for the new tender, overturning the scoring criteria. In 2008, the Barcelona Sagrera Alta Velocitat consortium planned the tender process based on an economic scale (40 punts) and a technical capacity scale (60 punts), while in 2015 ADIF established 25 points for the technical bid and 75 for the economic bid, which meant that the project was awarded to the company that submitted the lowest tender, despite being the worst of the technical proposals received, which was even acknowledged by ADIF.

At the event, the Dean of the Architects’ Association of Catalonia, Lluís Comerón, pointed out that 'the goal of the buildings and infrastructures we build and renovate is to be at the service of people and their wellbeing, and an overemphasis on economic criteria evidently fails to abide by this ultimate goal'. He called for the need to have 'a legal framework in place that prevents the kind of ridiculous situation such as the one that might happen at La Sagrera'.


Check the statement here (only available in Spanish)