- Local residents have come together to demand that local government resolves the “serious deficiencies” in cleaning and services on the coast while demanding a meeting with Bascuñana.
- They do not rule out an even bigger protest if their demands are not met.
“The politicians are ignoring us”. “We are fed up, and people are very angry”.
These are the feelings of the neighborhood groups in Orihuela Costa because of the ” serious deficiencies ” in services and infrastructure, especially in terms of street cleaning that, they say, “is far worse than it has been during any other summer.”
For the first time, the twenty different groups and associations of Orihuela Costa have come together, and in a letter delivered to the City Council they detail the deficiencies that are currently being suffered by the many different urbanisations as they also demand a meeting with the mayor, Emilio Bascuñana, who they say should now intervene “to prevent the services in the coast Coast from declining even further.”
However, despite an entry registration stamp in the town hall office on 4 August, the mayor said on 10 August that he hasn’t yet had sight of the letter, and that he will respond once it arrives on his desk.
The letter is signed by twenty groups, each requesting the urgent action to be undertaken by the local council, comprised of the PP and Cs.
The requests are divided into two groups, short-term priority (to be carried out before November 1) and those that can be completed in the medium term (before summer 2022).
Among the first group, waste collection and street cleaning tops the list. The residents demand the repair or replacement of the old dustbins and their regular washing, an increase in sweeping, the cleaning of streets and the increase in trucks and staff for the collection of garden and household waste that piles up on the streets for days and even weeks, which portrays an undesirable image in the middle of the tourist season. They also criticise the competence also of the responsible councillor, Dámaso Aparicio.
As for the infrastructure, responsibility of Cs councillor Ángel Noguera, the Orihuela Costa groups complain about the lack of pruning of palm trees and their clearing, and the lack of maintenance of the parks.
They also focus on the deplorable state of several roads along the Oriolano coastline, for which reason they ask for plan to be produced showing deficiencies in asphalt and broken paving, as well as another that highlights the deficiencies in road signaling and lighting.
“There is a lack of effort and control on the part of the City Council, and the patching that they do carry out on the roads lasts, at most, four or five months, the repairs are done late and badly,” complains Óscar Garrido, from the Villamartín Neighborhood Association.
There are sinkholes in walkways, and landslides have not been fixed for months, two years in the case of La Caleta. The City Council announced that it had begun a geotechnical study on the instability of the lands of the Coast but is still to report its conclusions. “People are very angry because the City Council ignores us, but the anger amongst residents is growing and, unless action is taken to address our complaints, it will finally erupt,” says Tomás Moreno.
“We are tired and bored of always putting up with the same talk and promises, without anything being done,” says Óscar Garrido. Therefore, the residents of the Oriolana coast, where there are 30,000 people registered and whose population triples in summer, warn that they are willing to repeat the protest carried out recently and that, this time, it will be far bigger. “We are not going to sit idly by,” they point out.”
Another demand is addressed to the councillor for Security, Antonio Sánchez, a request for police reinforcements to improve police control in order to stop vandalism and illegal dumping of pruning and belongings in the area. “Uncivil behaviour is rife because it is not sanctioned,” complains Moreno. They also ask the implementation of “urgent measures” to reduce the danger of pedestrian traffic on the bridge over the AP-7, for attention to the parks, the maintenance of which leaves much to be desired, and the footbaths on the beaches, which do not all work properly.
