Vera’s Guardia Civil officers, changing in garages for six years, finally see new barracks move forward

Guardia Civil officers in Vera have spent more than six years getting changed in garages with no showers after cracks forced them out of their own barracks. Now, the first real step towards knocking the old building down and putting up a replacement is finally under way.

Officers have been working from the Local Police station since 2020

Since March 2020, Vera’s Guardia Civil officers have been working out of the town’s Local Police station, where they were moved as a temporary fix that’s now lasted more than six years. They’ve had to make do with makeshift changing rooms set up in garages, no showers and no proper emergency plan.

The old barracks, which first opened on June 24, 1960, were evacuated after cracks started appearing in one of the homes inside the building because of poor foundations. Reports from both Vera Town Hall and the Guardia Civil’s provincial command flagged the risk of collapse, so everyone was moved out straight away, apart from the traffic unit.

A €183,509 contract to design the new barracks

Now, the Guardia Civil’s economic affairs department (Jefatura de Asuntos Económicos) has put out to tender the contract to draw up the project to demolish the old building and build a new one in its place.

The contract has a base budget of €183,509.98 and also covers a land survey, a geotechnical study (an analysis of the ground the building will stand on), a health and safety study and a plan for handling the demolition waste. That ground study matters more than most here, given it was weak foundations that emptied the old barracks in the first place. Companies have until Thursday November 5 to submit their bids, and whoever wins will then have three months to complete the project. 

Years of complaints before the tender arrived

The tender didn’t come out of nowhere, though. In April 2025, Almería’s Partido Popular (PP) gathered at the empty barracks with Vera mayor Alfonso García Ramos to demand action, with the mayor saying the Guardia Civil lacked the backing of the central government.

At the time, the government’s answer in parliament was that it planned to put the design out to tender in 2026, as long as the budget allowed it. The demolition and rebuild was then included in Spain’s 2025-2029 security infrastructure plan, approved by the Council of Ministers (the Spanish cabinet) almost a year ago.

The diggers won’t arrive just yet

For residents in the area thinking they’re about to hear diggers all day for 3 months, they’ve still got a while left until that comes to pass. This contract only covers the design, and no date has been given for when building work will start. Once the bids close and a winner is chosen, three months of design work takes things into the beginning of 2027 at the earliest. Only then can a separate contract for the demolition and construction itself go out to tender.

For a town of more than 20,000 people whose population triples in summer, getting its officers back into a proper base matters, both for the service residents and visitors receive and for the officers’ own working conditions. So the next date to watch is Thursday November 5, when the bids close and the clock on the design work can finally start.