If there was a town called apathy then maybe we could twin it with the Orihuela Costa, although if recent indications are anything to go by I doubt that anybody would attend the ceremony.
I have lived on the Costa now for a little over 15 years and in that time I have grown accustomed to the whinging expats who like to moan about anything and everything; the state of the roads, the waste collection services, schooling and education, and whilst many of their complaints are fully justified, when they do have the opportunity to have their voices heard and to do something about it they do absolutely nothing!
For the last four weeks the Orihuela Government has been running a campaign asking residents to vote on how part of the Municipal budget should be spent. I do agree that it could have been better publicised but the information was out there and it did receive a considerable amount of publicity, especially on social media platforms such as Facebook.
With over 200 schemes under consideration, many of them on the Orihuela Costa, you might have thought that the 30,000 good people of the coast would have used the opportunity to have their say, especially as those eligible were each authorised to cast their votes on three different projects.
So would it come as any surprise to learn that the total number of votes cast by the 30,000 residents of the Orihuela Costa amounted to a miserable total of just 60 votes? Nowhere has the phrase ‘You get what you deserve’ been more appropriate!
Despite the numerous improvements that the area desperately needs and the insistence of neighbourhood associations that they be urgently carried out, between the two Orihuela Costa districts X and XI, only 60 people voted in the poll.
In District X the proposal to purchase a high-pressure cleaner for the Coast received 17 votes, repair and replacement of waste containers recorded 16 votes and outdoor fitness circuits got 12 votes, while in District XI the project receiving the most votes was the monthly cleaning and disinfection of waste containers with 8 votes, followed by the replanting of damaged palm trees, with 6 votes.
It will be interesting to see the council response!
