The councils of 11 municipalities will increase the number of their political representatives at the next batch of Municipal elections in May due to the growth of the population, the largest of them Castalla, which now exceeds 11,000 residents. Llíber is the only town in Alicante that will lose councillors with just 967 residents
The 2022 population register is the one that will serve as a reference to establish the configuration of town councils for the local elections to be held next May. In the province of Alicante, 22 additional councillors will be chosen than in the 2019 elections, because of the demographic increase that has been revealed in 11 municipalities, representing an additional 24 councillors. Only one council has lost two representatives as its number of inhabitants fell.
These 11 municipalities now exceed the size of population that determine the number of councillors in their town halls: 251, 1,001, 2,001, 5,001 and 10,001 residents. It is notable that all these increases have occurred at the lower population levels, that is, there is no new municipality with more than 20,000, 50,000, 100,000 or 300,000 inhabitants.
The largest of these towns is Castalla, which in the last four years has grown from 9,880 to 11,097 inhabitants, so its council will grow by four councillors, from 13 to 17.
Both Los Montesinos and Polop will now elect 13 councillors, as they exceed 5,000 inhabitants; Montesinos already exceeded this figure at the 2011 elections, although it later fell below it, but for the municipality of Polop this situation is new. Just as the municipalities of Beniarbeig, San Isidro and Jacarilla have never had 11 councillors until now; both the Marina Alta town and the two from Vega Baja exceed 2,000 registered voters for the very first time.
Aigües barely exceeded 1,000 inhabitants at the beginning of the last decade, which saw its council grow to nine representatives; years later it dropped to around 900 residents, and with it to seven councillors, but now its census is back above four digits, so for this reason, in May it will again have nine municipal representatives.
However, even more striking are the cases of Alcosser, El Castell de Guadalest and Confrides, which exceed 250 inhabitants and will increase from five councillors to seven.
Meanwhile, a number of other municipalities just fall short of the numbers required to justify an increase. This is the case in Sax, which remains 13 inhabitants away from the 10,000, a barrier that it previously surpassed in the 2011 elections but below which it fell again four years later.
Likewise, El Verger is 15 residents away from the 5,001 inhabitants that would allow it to have 13 councillors, and Agost is 53 people away from reaching that same figure. meanwhile, in Parcent they are only four people away from exceeding a thousand residents.
Image: In SAN-FULGENCIO the no of councilors remains at 13
