Those of you who know Cabo Roig and, perhaps, use it’s medical centre, will be aware of just how difficult it is to park a vehicle within easy walking distance. Spaces in the surrounding streets are at an absolute premium, particularly during the summer months with the influx of thousands of additional holidaymakers.
The spare plot adjacent to the centre is usually overflowing, despite the difficult access which, until recently, saw many vehicles scraping their sump on the uneven concrete entranceway, but with the arrival of a hundred market traders and their white vans every Thursday even those few spaces disappeared.
In general, those who need to use the Medical centre tend to be suffering from an illness or an infirmity so their very condition requires that they park as close as they possibly can to the centre, certainly not an easy proposition. You only have to stand outside the facility to see the difficulties that many of the patients are in.
Of course the medical centre staff have their own dedicated parking area, a locked compound directly behind the building, and rightly so, but despite assurances from successive council’s, since the medical centre was first built over 15 years ago the problems remain exactly the same for the users.
This newspaper has been personally assured by at least 3 councillors and council assessors in recent years that the adjacent spare plot would be allocated for the specific use of medical centre patients, as well as being upgraded with a suitable base, but as a resident of Orihuela Costa we have all learned over the years that there are few council officials who can ever keep a promise, particularly when it comes to a commitment on the coast.
And now one ‘bright’ Orihuela Councillor has made the situation even worse. He has taken away the use of the spare adjacent plot by residents in granting permission for the siting of a fairground on the land. How absolutely ridiculous. The area, particularly on Thursday’s market day, is an accident just waiting to happen. And all the while the sick and infirm face increasing difficulties meeting their appointments as they are required to just struggle on.
The issues are so bad that residents have been forced to park on street corners, pedestrian crossings in the bus stop bay, all largely ignored by the police, meaning vulnerable people need to walk in the middle of an often-chaotic road to get past.
Once again, a case of the Orihuela Ayuntamiento paying little thought to the consequences of their actions with absolutely no regard for the people of Orihuela Costa.
