In a report compiled during late August by the residents Association, AVCRL Asociación de vecinos Cabo Roig y Lomas, the Orihuela Municipal Council has been slammed for failing to provide a satisfactory level of public services to residents living on the Orihuela Costa.
Almost 400 people responded to the call in which 81% of those surveyed (302 people) state that the services they receive are POOR or VERY POOR.
Many of the criticisms are aimed at street cleaning, the collection of waste and the maintenance of parks and gardens, where all of the results are graded as unsatisfactory. Only beaches, security and public lighting achieved a grading of satisfactory with beaches achieving the highest score across the whole survey, but even that was only 5.6/10.
At the bottom end of the scale was de-weeding, the clearing of waste ground, with a mark of 2.8/10 while Street cleaning and the maintenance of parks didn’t fare much better with a satisfaction rate of 3.3/10, The collection of refuse, recycling and garden waste achieved marks of 4.4, 3.9 and 3.6 respectively.
The responses confirm the perception held by the vast majority of people living on the coast that the council provides very poor services in Orihuela Costa, the quality of which decreases during the summer season, as a result of the increase in the number of people on the coast, and the lack of reinforcements in both personnel and additional equipment.
The Orihuela Municipal council, regardless of the party elected to power, and despite the pre-election promises that we hear from the politicians, simply regards the Orihuela Costa as a ‘Cash Cow’ and really doesn’t give a ‘hoot’ about the needs of its people.
There is also a fear that with planning permission granted during the summer months for almost 600 new properties on the coast and the sale of 3 coastal plots of building land in Las Colinas, La Cuerda and El Garbanzuelo the already inadequate coastal services will be stretched even further.
The one thing that is certain about the Orihuela Costa is that the reality of the services available to it’s 40,000 residents lag a long way behind those attractive glossy images that the council displays on all of its literature.
The report, which is available on the association facebook page, was sent to the Mayor and many of the council departments last week requesting that urgent measures be taken, to correct the problems revealed in the survey. The association told the council once again that it could not continue to ignore resident’s petitions indefinitely.
