The owner of the Orihuela Costa go-kart track and restaurant, adjacent to the N-332, has called off the demonstration that was scheduled to take place outside the Orihuela City Town Hall today (Monday), following the council’s withdrawal of the forced reparcelling of the land that the Go Karts currently occupy.
José Luis Sánchez has said that he has been told, although only verbally at this stage, that the forced reparcelling is going to be withdrawn so for now the karts “will continue to operate”. He added that he also hopes that the parties can reach and agreement to that the Go Kart track can be permanently maintained.
The planned demonstration, using the slogan “Less housing and more services”, was to protest against the haphazard urban planning policy of the Orihuela City Council in the Costa area, which prioritises the unbridled construction of housing without any attempt to meet the needs of the necessary infrastructure, among which he includes the leisure requirements of the residents.
The backdown of the Orihuela Council, if confirmed, will no doubt be linked to one of the many objections and allegations that the Sánchez has presented to the subdivision process: the municipality did not publish – or at least it cannot find the documentary proof that it did – the publication in the official bulletin of the province, or the approval in 1997 by the plenary, of the partial plan that shows a change of use, which is also included in the General Plan of 1994.
Sánchez also states that there are many other administrative and processing deficiencies that completely invalidate the subsequent processing: from the approval of the urbanisation plan in 2004 and its modification in 2007.
The go-kart track has been operating with a municipal license for more than 45 years in the same location, complying with all acoustic regulations, and the owner points out, that it is totally irresponsible that the municipality “is currently attempting to justify a modification to the General Plan to provide more land for building, in areas that are already saturated with housing” on the Orihuela Costa.
Only recently the track owner denounced the Torrevieja builder, Marcos y Bañuls SL, the owners of the adjoining land, to the courts “for malicious damage to it’s electrical power supply, by preventing engineers from entering the area to effect repairs “an act of sabotage to the lighting towers that has left the company without electricity supply,” which he called “a campaign of harassment that has gradually seen the reduction of its business area.”
But now, with the recent assurances that Sánchez has received from the Orihuela Council, he hopes that the popular facility will be allowed to remain open with the abandonment also of the forced expropriation reparcelling project.
He added that with 30 staff who depend on him for their livelihoods it is also good news for employment in the area.
