Good practice:

RESTORATION OF AN OLD PAVILION OF THE GREENWAY OF THE OLD BASQUE-NAVARRE RAILWAY

The Basque-Navarre Greenway links the areas of the Region by uniting its main ecotourism attractions, and in this way encourages the promotion of the social and economic development of the Alavese Mountain from a perspective that respects Nature.
The Greenway has become a path for walkers and cyclists interested in following a route through changing landscapes of great beauty. Not surprisingly, several Natural Protected Areas of the Natura 2000 Network are crossed and old stations, viaducts and tunnels. The Basque-Navarre Greenway, therefore, appears not only as a platform for recreational sports and alternative mobility activities to cars, but also as an opportunity to rescue from oblivion a cultural heritage.
In the town of Antoñana (Montaña Alavesa Region), next to the Greenway Interpretation Centre, is one of the minor jewels of the industrial heritage that accompanied this railway line. This very special piece, formerly known as the automotive pavilion, served as a workshop and warehouse for the trains cars from 1927 to 1967.
The restored pavilion will serve as a warehouse for bicycles to be rented by visitors, while the extension will provide a bar, rest and exhibition service. These actions, complementary to the WLE project, will strengthen the promotion of the socioeconomic development of the region through its natural assets, since they involve reusing an old railway infrastructure to bring walkers and cyclists to a natural environment in a respectful way.

The budget amounts to €300,000, which had to be divided into two execution phases. A first phase consists of the consolidation of the original pavilion, and the construction of the extension with a total of €200,000. In the second phase, the interior adaptation works will be undertaken with €100,000

The consolidation of a disappearing industrial heritage can be considered a success in itself. This heritage, in turn, makes it possible to implement the necessary uses to support the Greenway in a territory that lacks services of these characteristics, which directly affects the approach to the natural environment and the promotion of socio-economic development.

Such important economic investments require the need to involve a variety of actors. This has generated the need to divide the execution of the project into successive phases, with the technical difficulty required and the uncertainty with regards to the date of completion of the total project.

The Greenway still has a lot of heritage in a state of ruin, which can be restored to keep its history alive, and to recover a very special industrial heritage that is very relevant to the territory it runs through. The neighbouring territory of Navarre also has the opportunity to recover this heritage by providing not only continuity to the route, but also continuity in the historical reading of that time. In any case, this action further consolidates the use of the Greenway, which was once a railway, and this reuse of a linear infrastructure and its associated heritage in disuse can be extrapolated to other areas of European geography for environmentally-friendly walking and cycling.