Whilst most people welcome the decision of the council to change it’s mind regarding the site of the new Orihuela Costa School No 20, finally announcing that it will not be placed on Zenia Boulevard Car Park, the choice of the new location is not being so warmly welcomed, with many local residents claiming that the traffic chaos that it will cause will be even worse.
The new location is an already busy and built up area, where queues of traffic regularly form, so the extra pressure that will now be put upon the road with the additional daily vehicular movement in and out of the neighbourhood, is likely to cause even more mayhem.
The choice of new location is in Calle Madreperla, an extremely narrow thoroughfare, that leads alongside Via Park II and on to the busy Urb Pau 3, Ctra Villamartin, directly opposite the Oriental Market.
See Also: Zenia Boulevard now discarded as plot for new school
María García, the Orihuela Councillor of Education, explained that of all the municipal plots the most prepared was the Boulevard parking lot, because it is level and has good lighting, but on reflection it was seen that the school would occupy practically all of the car park, making parking at the shopping centre very much of a premium and no doubt seriously restricting visitors.
She explained that the first option considered was in Calle Níspero in Los Dolses, on the same plot that housed the ‘temporary’ school of the “Playas de Orihuela” for 16 years,” however, that was discarded because the land is considered to be too steep.
So now it has been decided, by the Department of Urbanism, directed by Councillor José Aix, that the plot on Calle Madreperla meets the best conditions, but even with the screed already laid, with the municipal elections on the horizon, this will mean a delay of one month, according to García, which is why she now anticipates that the facilities will not be ready until at least October, over a month into the new school year.
Partido Popular Councillor, Almudena Baldó, says that Garcia and Aix knew of the requirement to find land many weeks ago, with the Valencian Ministry of Education, directed by Raquel Tamarit, having written at least two letters to the City Council to demand the details of the new plot on which the school is to be erected.
Baldó continued, “We doubt that these actions will now be carried out in the time and manner demanded by the regional administration, given that both Carolina Gracia and José Aix have been busy with their electoral campaigns for some time and seemingly totally unconcerned with daily management,” she grieved. Baldó, added that two-year-olds will have nowhere to go, since the registration period has ended, and the Los Dolses school is already full.
For this reason, the councillor continued, when the month of September arrives, the Ministry will be forced to send the new students to other towns in the area as they will not be able to attend Orihuela Costa centres due to their overcrowding.
The idea was to begin constructing the school before June so that the next 2023-2024 academic year would begin in prefabricated classrooms. For this, the Ministry of Education awarded the assembly, rental and disassembly to Alquileres Barceló Sáez SL for 1.2 million euros and a completion period of two months, so that it would be ready in September, and which would then operate for at least three years until construction of the new school on a plot designated by the City Council.
