Old Town of Ávila with its Extra-Muros Churches

• Project to construct a new bridge over the river Rio Adajo  (issue resolved) 
• Urban pressure : re-designing of the Plaza Santa Teresa, located between the town walls and the extra-muros Church of San Pedro, including the replacement of traditional buildings with new ones
• Lack of buffer-zone and integrated management plan
• Inadequate legal protection;
• Inadequate respect of the Operational Guidelines (para. 172) before construction and refurbishment were undertaken.

The State Party provided on 1 February 2007 a report in Spanish with three annexes including

a) a reply to the retrospective inventory;

b) cartographic documentation;

c) clarifications of minor boundary modifications.

The document also explains legislative progress, especially concerning the passing of the Decree 22/2004 of 29 January, establishing the Urban Planning Regulation of Castilla y Leon and the Agreement 37/2005 of 31 March of the Castilla y Leon Regional Government, establishing the PAHIS Plan 2004-2012 regarding Historical Heritage in Castilla y Leon. The PAHIS Plan includes a Protection Scheme that envisages the implementation of legislation needed to fully enforce the provisions of the Castilla y Leon Cultural Heritage Act, Law 12/2002. The PAHIS Plan also envisages specific treatment of World Heritage properties and includes a ‘series of concrete measures whose purpose is to ensure upholding of the excellence criteria on which recognition was based in the first place and to enhance conservation and management conditions’.

With regard to the request made for an integrated management plan, the report notes that a ‘Territorial Heritage System’ has been drafted for the management of the World Heritage property. In addition, a Framework Collaboration Agreement between the Department of Culture and Tourism of the Castilla y Leon Regional Government and the Town Hall of Avila for the drafting of a Management Plan for the Old Town of Avila and its Extra-Muros Churches as a site included on the World Heritage List has also been signed (27 September 2006). A Joint Committee will be formed to co-ordinate and monitor the enforcement of the Agreement and the works deriving from it. During 2007 discussions will be undertaken with stakeholders involved in heritage management and a document will be drafted in 2008 to serve as the basis for the work envisaged in implementation of protection measures, definition of specific measures required by the Convention, etc. This document will be submitted to the national Ministry of Culture and the World Heritage Centre in 2008 and, following this consultation, a text will be presented for preliminary approval in the first half of 2009.

With regard to the boundaries of the property and its buffer zone, the report summarises the earlier information and maps of boundaries and buffer zones provided to the World Heritage Centre in response to clarifications sought during the Periodic Reporting exercise. A proposal to modify the boundaries is being developed to enhance the property’s degree of coherence by including six other extra-muros religious monuments within an enlarged area and with new buffer zones that are consistent with the level of protection that the new integrated management plan seeks to provide.

Furthermore, via letter dated 2 March 2007, a CD was transmitted to the World Heritage Centre concerning the state of conservation of Avila which provides a summary of the delimitations as well as protection measures in English.