First Mayoral Candidate Speaks on Costa Esuri

Alberto Fernandez leader of the PP party in Ayamonte together with his potential management team addressed a meeting held at CE GC last week. I will not try to give a verbatim report of the meeting but pick out one or two salient points from his speech (others might care to add to this since I had to leave before the end).

Alberto was introduced to the meeting by the party secretary who works on Esuri and if I understood correctly lives here as well.

Alberto first gave some personal background saying that he was 36 years old and a practising Lawyer married to a Lawyer with two children living in Ayamonte.

He welcomed us all to the meeting with a couple of sentences in English and then apologized to us for not speaking English but would have the help of an interpreter for the rest of the meeting. He also promised that the management team if elected would all make an effort to learn some English to better represent the varied nationalities in Ayamonte. Whilst welcome I was embarrassed that it is so obvious that the English in particular are poor at learning languages!

He then went on to the difficulties that have beset CE since the troubles at Martinsa Fadesa began 4 years ago. Culminating in the current Mayor and Fadesa deciding to implement the EUC much earlier in the life of the Urbanisation than would be normal.

He was concerned that the constitution of the EUC was determined by Fadesa and was not properly discussed and voted on as would be usual at the outset of an organisation such as this.

He was also worried about the high costs of running the EUC and the apparent duplication of charges between the EUC and IBI. One charge in particular he drew to our attention the BASURA tax is identified and charged in both.

For this and other reasons he undertook that within 3 months of taking office he would implement a rigorous audit of the charges and accounts of the EUC.

In the same time frame he undertook to get the private operators to bring some kind of bus service into Esuri.

He was aware of the recent spate of robberies on Esuri and as first step would look at the policing requirements for our development. This would be in tandem with the establishment of a small 2 person outpost of the Ayuntamiento in a porta-cabin office on site. This would then form a contact point for all local services and the Local Police (the Mayor has no control over the Guardia Civil or National police). The President of the Residents Association raised the question of the cost of this as an additional burden on the IBI. His reply was that we on CE already paid a high price in IBI and EUC and he felt that costs could be contained within current budgets by secondment of staff from the main office. He would select those with foreign language skills.

On the proposal for a Marina at Esuri he was very careful not to raise hope since he said that Ayuntamiento did not control or have the final say in approving such a project and whilst the town council and other bodies had approved the plan there were still outstanding permissions needed from higher authorities. The same sort of problems also impacted on the establishment of a health centre at Esuri but he undertook to examine and if possible support those projects. He made it clear that as part of the original development plan various areas of the site had to be given over to the Ayuntamiento for such community uses and this had happened in particular the site near the "shop" was available for uses such as police station, fire station, ambulance station, clinic,mini town hall and other civic uses. Other areas of the site should support sporting facilities.

A point of concern to me personally was the recent announcement by the current Mayor that a Superstore with Hotel additional shops and petrol station was to be built on a site adjacent to the Polygono ( my worries are that this will kill the hotel and commercial center at Esuri for a very long time). Alberto said that although outline approval had already been given he did not think it should proceed since despite our concerns for Esuri he felt it would have a large negative impact on town and the La Plaza shopping center. It would undoubtable create jobs but more would be lost in the established center of town.

Two other topics he raised were the problems encountered with the foul drainage system with blockages and smells and the absence of landline telephone cables.

Many questions were asked at the end of his talk on a wide range of topics in particular the EUC and costs. In answer to this he made a point that I was unaware of.

I understand that the EUC is provided for by national statute and must be an interim body between the completion of a development and its adoption by the Ayuntamiento with some residual functions after that.

The point he made was that the EUC when established has to be licensed by the Ayuntamiento and if the audit shows any problems he would be prepared to withdraw the licence from the EUC.