Following a meeting of residents held on Friday evening to explain the new Orihuela Costa Budget, Manuel Mestre left knowing that he still has a lot to prove.
Residents have already seen many councillors pass through the Playa Flamenca Town Hall and, after years of unfulfilled promises the distrust was clear to see that promised investments and improvements to many basic problems, such as the lack of maintenance of roads and gardens and, most especially, the poor garbage and refuse collection service, are still a long way from being met.
The neighbourhood meeting took place just a few hours after the plenary session gave its final approval to the new budgets, the first in six years. Mestre said that he wanted to instil the idea in to his audience that the new accounts will be the touchstone on which to undo, one by one, all the grievances of which the coastal residents feel they have been victims for many years.
He explained that the successive budget extensions overseen by the previous PP-Cs and PSOE-Cs councils have generated a series of problems, such as many services without a contract, the absence of investments and an inefficient internal structure. He also spoke of many contracts expiring without remedy, causing delays in payments, late payment interest and underwhelming services.
Faced with the neighbourhood feeling that the PP-Vox government team has done nothing since arriving in power over 12 months ago, Mestre tried to make the residents see that the executive, although it has not concluded many files, has managed to keep many of them in operation. He also spoke about the foundations they are laying to try to improve both garden maintenance and the garbage collection service.
Regarding the parks and gardens, he boasted of unblocking a tender undertaken by the previous municipal government, defending the decision to throw out the public tender and municipalise the service through the municipal company Ildo, which already carries our similar work in the districts.
He said that at this time, the government is working to strengthen this municipal company with more machinery and personnel. New job offers have already been advertised, in parallel, with the approved budgets, they are currently buying more machinery.
Despite the previous lack of a meaningful budget Mestre went on to highlight achievements that have so far been made including his daily presence in Orihuela Costa.
He said that, If Ildo’s entry is expected at the end of this summer, Surpal’s arrival still seems distant. Mestre explained that the company has been reactivated and has updated its accounts after many years of inactivity, but it is still a few months away from being fully operational.
On the subject of investments, the councillor said that he recognised that they will not be immediate. Although the new budgets will come into force this coming week, and despite the endemic bureaucratic slowness of the Council, he hopes to accelerate several deadlines this summer.
The first thing will be to put out to tender the subscription of a banking operation, a loan or “line of credit” worth more than 40 million euros with which it is planned to finance all investments charged to the budgets. Thus, it is not expected that, at least until September, investments will be put out to tender. Meanwhile, Mestre assured, progress is being made with permits and the drafting of the different projects.
Of all these investments, the Councilor of the Coast focused on four: the pedestrian extension of the bridge over the AP-7 in Lomas de Cabo Roig, the new civic centre and auditorium, the refurbishment of the football field in La Ciñuelica to host federated matches and the reopening and redevelopment of the promenade to be expropriated between Cabo Roig and Aguamarina, That he hopes will be open by the summer of 2025
Mestre also highlighted the new drinking water tank for Orihuela Costa as being one of the most notable investments.
