On Monday, the President of the Regional Government, Carlos Mazón visited Torrevieja for the first of two visits planned for the week, and visited the works of the port and, with the leisure centre behind him, where he offered a series of statements with which the General Secretary of the Torrevieja socialists, Barbara Soler, felt the need to clarify, even to the point of accusing the president of failing to comply with the election campaign rules, whilst seeking praise for the work of another man.
Mazón stated in his speech that the new leisure area of the port “will allow Torrevieja to be at the forefront of the 21st century and even the 22nd” and is an example of where the Valencian Community is moving forward, with “100 million investment” for the transformation of the port of Torrevieja.
In the face of these statements, Soler has been very forceful and has recalled that the rehabilitation of the port area is a true benefit for Torrevieja but the responsibility lies firmly in the hands of the former President, Ximo Puig, and “neither Mazón nor his government have had anything to do with the project”, nor in the investment, “no matter how much he puts on a helmet and a vest and visits the construction site” for photo opportunities with Torrevieja’s own social media influencer in chief, the mayor, Eduardo Dolon.
The spokeswoman for the municipal group has praised the public-private collaboration that is allowing the rehabilitation of the area and has taken the opportunity to reproach the local PP for the delay that both the accesses to the leisure area and the Levante Dock are suffering. “The businessman is complying with the work but, even if he finishes it on time, neither vehicles nor citizens will be able to access it due to the negligence of the government team” and advances that “the problem is not solved with a temporary roundabout with a cost of millions, the accesses should have been planned and decided at the same time as the leisure centre” and assures that it would be a disaster that the leisure centre was opened and did not work “because of the passivity of the PP”.
Mazón also had words to refer to the Vive Plan by which “he” intends to build 10,000 social homes throughout the Valencian Community. Thus, he assured that Torrevieja will be in this matter “an example for the rest of the municipalities of the Valencian Community”.
Of these, Soler clarifies, “some 3,000 come from a previous EU-funded government of Ximo Puig and 7.000 depend on the City Councils ceding municipal land for construction and collaborating with private initiatives in exchange for swaps, then the Generalitat will not carry out any work directly and the final objective is not the citizens but the companies.”
In Torrevieja there are a couple of plots that could be used, in addition to some 700 social housing units planned in the La Hoya sector, the spokeswoman recalls, “have been planned and approved for years and have always been linked to the construction project of La Hoya, which is currently being executed, so if Mazón is going to build10,000 homes like the ones that await him in La Hoya, he will not have a difficult time because they were going to be built with him or without him.”
Bárbara Soler also wanted to refer to the alternative that the regional government has available to acquire empty housing through the rights of first refusal and withdrawal and allocate it to housing based on the regulations approved by the previous Government. The socialist assures that “everywhere there is a need for public housing, but this does not necessarily mean building in territories where it has been “overbuilt”, such as in Torrevieja, but that It is important to try to make use of the large pocket of empty housing that exists in many municipalities, which in turn avoids placing social housing isolated from the rest, with all the disadvantages and stigma that this has always entailed.”
According to the latest data of the Institute of National Statistics, there are some 30,000 vacant homes in Torrevieja, around a quarter of the entire housing stock.
In addition, the socialist regretted that the Valencian Community has refused to apply the measures provided for in the state housing law to declare areas of tension and avoid the increase in the price of rent that has not stopped multiplying in recent years “and is located close to the values of the real estate bubble, doubling those marked in the benchmark index of the ministry”. “The Vive Plan is a band-aid,” says Soler, “which in no way solves the great drama of our young people not being able to become independent despite being working.”
Carlos Mazón also announced that the works will begin immediately to transform the Delfina Viudes centre into a centre for attention to people with functional diversity.
In this case, Soler has stated that attention to functional diversity is a priority for everyone and that the problem has always been the total lack of adequacy of the centre for the destination to which it is intended It was supposed to be planned from the beginning. “It seems that a major reform has been intentionally and needed to be done in order to adapt the centre to this use.”
Finally, Mazón wanted to refer to the problems faced by the staff of the Torrevieja Hospital, congratulating himself on being the first president of the Generalitat to have met with the works council. “They have had to come to the port to hold a ten-minute meeting taking advantage of their time in Torrevieja,” says Soler, who assures that he is happy that there is a commitment to equalise the health personnel of Torrevieja that a few months ago “was not at all clear”.
Soler referred to the defence and public support for the unions and the works council that the socialists carried out when the current Mazón government chose not to comply with the agreement to gradually equalise the conditions of the statutory and labour staff of the Torrevieja Hospital, alleging formal defects and lack of budget.
The socialist then maintained that the pretext of the new regional government for not complying with the agreement was “unacceptable for any citizen” and that “this phrase can be taken from any item, since there is even one for various expenses and we are talking about a negligible sum in relation to a Ministry that manages a budget of more than eight and a half billion euro.”
It was after the demands of the local and regional PSOE “and with the surprising silence of a local PP that led demonstrations in the previous stage” when the Minister decided to propose his own agreement in the same sense as the one that had already been reached with the progressive government, “which makes it clear that the only reason why they opted for the non-compliance was due to a lack of political will and the need to erase everything that had to do with the government of Ximo Puig,” said Sóler.
The spokesperson also wanted to point out that a very large number of referrals are currently being made to private or privately managed centres because the priority is not to provide resources to public centres but to the interest of third parties. In this sense, she recalled that the investment for the expansion of the Hospital “has practically disappeared with the government of Mazón” and points out that this is a very serious fact taking into account the overflowing growth that the population is expected to have with the construction of thousands of new homes in which citizens will live “who simply cannot be provided with quality public healthcare”.
Bárbara Soler did not want to end her statements without assuring that what happened yesterday is shameful, since it is a full-fledged sale of achievements, totally forbidden in an electoral campaign. However, she clarified that “the visit to the rehabilitation works of the port area and the photo with the leisure centre behind it show a clear desire to appropriate someone else’s achievement. In this case, a bet by Ximo Puig. If you want to make a real sale of the achievements of the Mazón government, the next visit can be scheduled at the Official School of Languages of Torrevieja, where they will surely be waiting with open arms.”
