During the Dana of 2019, Campoamor lost a vital connection between the north and south of the urbanisation. Avenida de las Adelfas, which previously ran along the seafront, across the Rio Nacimiento River in front of La Glea beach, was closed after the disaster, by order of Costas and despite the opposition of the City Council.
Now, the state body is demanding that the Council remove all traces of the road that once passed through the middle of the coastal area.
In a letter sent by Costas to the Orihuela council the municipality has been ordered to undertake, without further delay, the removal of the remains of the road left after the flood. It its place it wants the installation of a wooden walkway, 55 meters long, three wide and three deep, as well as improvements to the pedestrian walkway, and levelling of the sand.
Demanding its repair, the previous PP-Cs government went before the Superior Court of Justice of the Valencian Community stating that the closure to road traffic along Adva Adelfas represents serious harm to residents. While before it was possible to cross from one bank of the river to the other along the beachfront, now residents are forced to make a detour inland to go under the famous stone bridge or when it is flooded, as often happens during bouts of rain, onto the N-332 itself.
The national highway already supports a high volume of traffic in summer, which greatly lengthens the trips of those drivers of Campoamor who want to go to Aguamarina, either to the supermarket, the health centre or the bar area located in the well-known Cabo Roig strip. Added to all this is that for a few years now the direction of traffic on the old Campoamor bridge has been one-way, with vehicles only able to travel from north to south.
Costas says it is unfeasible for road traffic to return to the Avenida de las Adelfas because the land is in public maritime-terrestrial domain and alleges that, if cars are allowed to pass through, it would be violating the Coastal Law. The City Council, meanwhile, defended that the Campoamor urban planning plan, older than the Coastal Law (dating back to 1969), already provided for the existence and traffic of vehicles on that now closed road. The City Council is still waiting for the court to rule.
Parallel to the problem with the highway, the Nacimiento River channel in its final section is suffering from a lack of maintenance. The mouth, which in previous years used to be perfectly cleared, has now been completely taken over by reeds.
In the past, this same area has been used for parking during in the summer for those residents and tourists wishing to spend the day at La Glea. Now those same areas are inaccessible due to the abundance of the undergrowth.
Last summer, a fire very close to this point raised alarm among residents, who urged clearing of the area, as well as the rest of the boulevards that cross Orihuela Costa and lead to its beaches.
In the specific case of the mouth of the Rio Nacimiento, areas overlap where, for any action to be taken, it is necessary to inform Costas or the Segura Hydrographic Confederation, whether because it is in the public hydraulic or maritime-terrestrial domain.
At this time, the Council is in negotiations with the basin organization to come up with a future agreement that clarifies the municipal investment that the City Council must make in terms of maintenance of the urban sections of all the channels that cross the municipality.
