The Més Santa Pola group asked the ruling Partido Popular government in the town to “become aware of the problem and begin to regulate the uncontrolled increase in tourist apartments in Santa Pola”.
The confluence affirms that “the enormous growth of tourist accommodation in recent years is decreasing and making the offer of rental apartments more expensive for the whole year, causing many people from Santa Pola, mostly young people, to have had to leave to live outside the municipality, especially Elche”.
According to the data provided by Més Santa Pola, the municipality already accumulates more than 1,500 active tourist apartments, without counting the traditional rentals of fortnights or summer months, “more difficult to quantify”, Més points out.
“Renting an apartment all year round in Santa Pola was complicated before, but now that we have 1,500 “mini hotels” it is directly almost impossible: we are continuously in the rankings of municipalities with the highest increases in rental prices in all of Spain”, lament the formation.
In the words of the councillor of Més Santa Pola, Esteve Ruiz, “Santa Pola is expelling its youth and is becoming, little by little, a theme park for tourists; a town without identity, a simple place of passage”. “In the long term, we also face an economic disaster if we do nothing,” warns Esteve.
The confluence asks the municipal government of the PP “not to stand out in the face of this problem that threatens the very sustainability in the time of Santa Pola”: “The City Council has powers to regulate the granting of tourist apartment licences, it only takes will”. “We are immersed in a very serious situation, a solution should not understand political colours,” they say.
