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CostaBlancaPeople 19th-25th June 2018
Disgust as more delays announced for Emergency Services Centre C.L.A.R.O demonstration in front of the skeleton construction of the Orihuela Costa Emergency Services Centre one year ago.
The announcement that the sorely needed Emergency Services Centre in Orihuela Costa was to be further delayed was met with indignation and disgust by residents on the coast. Ten years after work started and 8 years after construction was paralysed by the builder’s bankruptcy the news that the Valencia government has reduced the amount of the agreed subsidy and that
Orihuela Town Hall will have to be responsible for tendering and supervising construction of the project was totally unexpected. This is all the more shocking since it is only two weeks ago that a petition, signed by more than 2,200 people, was presented to the Valencian and Orihuela authorities highlighting the urgency of completing the project after the tragic death of a young boy on La Zenia beach and the delay of some 40 minutes in the arrival of an adequately equipped ambulance. It is all the more disturbing since the time for accessing the subsidy and completing the project will run out next year. Now residents of Orihuela Costa will no doubt witness the blame game in which the Orihuela Town Hall will say the Valencia regional government is at fault and the Valencia regional government will say Orihuela Town Hall critically delayed submitting revised plans for several months. According to local residential, business
and political pressure groups the blame firmly rests with the successive local governments of Orihuela, which have collectively failed to give sufficient importance and priority to this vital project which Orihuela Costa needs to meet the security requirements of a population equal to that of the city and many times greater in peak tourist periods. The coast needs facilities for adequate local and national police services, ambulance and fire brigades situated here and not dispersed elsewhere. The equipped ambulance which finally arrived to treat the boy suffering cardiac arrest on La Zenia beach came from near Orihuela, 30 kilometres away. Orihuela Costa is and has forever been treated as a poor relation by the municipal governments located in Orihuela city. Residents living on the coast contribute some 60 percent of the municipality’s income and receive probably less than 20 percent of expenditure. Continued on page 3
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