If they are once again successful in leading the local government of Torrevieja after the elections this weekend, the candidate for Mayor for the Partido Popular of Torrevieja, Eduardo Dolón, has announced important and necessary projects that are going to be launched for the protection and social care of our neighbours.

The electoral program includes numerous proposals that focus mainly on serving all those people who need it most from the field of social services and from the fields of disability and diversity.

Eduardo Dolón has reported that one of the most outstanding projects is the expansion and reform of the ALPE Educational and Occupational Centre, given that it requires more facilities for the development of Special Education and Occupational Therapy, in order to attend to mentally and physically disabled.

The candidate for mayor for the PP affirms that currently in Torrevieja there is a single centre in which both demands are met. However, due to the increase in the number of users and the new requirements for these centres, the infrastructure created 30 years ago is becoming increasingly insufficient. In addition, spaces for very different uses are unified and shared, both at a teaching and professional level, which must be separated. For all these reasons, the proposal of the PP candidate this time is to expand and reform the current building and, with it, the physical separation of the Educational Centre and the Occupational Centre.

On the other hand, Eduardo Dolón, as he has already announced in this electoral campaign, foresees the construction of a new Municipal Alzheimer’s Centre, which will be called “Tomás Ballester Herrera”, since the current facilities have been totally insufficient due to the growing demand of users that AFA currently has.

Presumably not intending to criticise himself for lack of action on any of these matters during this current, or previous tenure, in which he was in government during the period of decline.

In addition, the candidate for Mayor for the PP has highlighted the importance of expand the current ADIEM building, in the municipal plot together with its facilities located in the Cortes Valencianas. A project that includes a Day Centre with 30 places and two living units with seven places each (14 in total). All this will mean the integration of new projects with the current CRIS and achieve a more agile, sustainable, efficient and social management of all the resources in favour of the users residing in this municipality.

Dolón has reiterated that he will demand, once and for all, a building that must be used solely for the purpose for which it was planned from the beginning, that is, to assist only people with functional diversity. Therefore, the Generalitat Valenciana will be demanded that the other uses that are currently provided in that building, and that have nothing to do with assistance to people with disabilities, are provided elsewhere. Again, presumably forgetting he could have demanded this previously.

Regarding health, the candidate for Mayor for the Popular Party will continue to demand solutions from the Generalitat Valenciana so that the people of Torrevieja have a quality public health, on an equal footing with other citizens, since we are deserving of decent health care. To do this, he will demand that the care ratios and waiting lists maintain, at least, the existing quality indices before the reversal of the Torrevieja Hospital occurred, in addition to demanding the investments committed and never executed by the Government of the Generalitat after said reversal.

Finally, he proposes implanting, developing and running community intervention programs that help solve the social problems we face, with special emphasis on young people and adolescents; the development and implementation of a Mental Health Plan in the municipality of Torrevieja; continue providing our NGOs with aid and subsidy programs so that they can carry out the social and community work they provide; as well as working actively to meet the demands of the LGTBIQ+ collective, providing scenarios for the visibility of equal rights and opportunities for all and continuing to provide local NGOs with aid programs and subsidies so that they can improve the great social and community work they provide.

It should be noted that the LGTBIQ+ have suffered direct homophobia from the PP, both nationally and in Torrevieja, primarily caused by insults levied by the previous PP mayor, Pedro Hernández Mateo (Dolón’s mentor and now a convicted criminal (pictured)), who, for example, insulted a famous Spanish singer in 2010. Dolón was deputy mayor at the time and made no efforts to support the community then, the result being a continual decline in trust of the LGTBIQ+ community which remains to this day.