Vila Nova de Famalicão Town Hall has been approved to apply to the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR) for the refurbishment and extension of the Padre Benjamim Salgado High School in Joane, with a total funding of 21.3 million euros.
According to the project, whose overall investment amounts to 22.7 million euros, in addition to work on the existing buildings and the construction of new spaces, there are also plans to remodelling the access roads to the school grounds.
‘Satisfied’ with the recent news regarding this process, the mayor of the municipality, Mário Passos, speaks of an intervention that has been ‘long demanded and that does justice to the transformative role that this school has had and continues to have in the life of the community’.
‘It's a project that will allow this school to grow, making it more modern, innovative, technological and inclusive and with all the conditions to face up to the challenges of the future,’ said the mayor, who this Friday, May 31, will take part in the signing ceremony for the contracts relating to the interventions financed by the PRR, under the tender ‘Programme for the Recovery/Rehabilitation of Schools - Modernisation of 2nd and 3rd cycle and secondary public educational establishments’, at the CCDR Norte headquarters, which will be chaired by the Minister of State and Territorial Cohesion, Manuel Castro Almeida.
Built in the early 1980s, the Padre Benjamim Salgado High School currently consists of three teaching blocks (A, B and C), a sports block and an administrative block.
In the existing teaching blocks, changes will be made to the interior spaces in order to provide the school with a greater and more varied range of training options. A building will be built next to Block C, called the Teaching Workshop. Common to all three blocks, alterations will also be made to allow interconnection with a new teaching block (D) and the replacement of the existing roof.
The Administrative Block will undergo more extensive work, with the construction of a new auditorium, a new library and the remodelling and reorganisation of existing spaces in order to adapt the building to the school's new reality. In addition to these new spaces, the multipurpose area, kitchen and canteen will also be reorganised.
The existing sports block will be kept, but adapted into a new adjoining block that will mainly consist of changing rooms, a gym and support rooms.
Increasing the building's energy performance and a sustainable intervention were, according to the description, the main factors taken into account when developing the project.