People power vs Orihuela Costa townhall.

From this week's Costa Blanca News ( and yes I was one of them - the demonstrators that is.)

Homeowners vent fury over unscrupulous builders

By Nuria Pérez
MORE than 100 residents held a demonstration outside Orihuela town hall on Tuesday before the full council meeting.

The protestors – almost all expats – were carrying signs complaining of town hall neglect on the coast.

“We demand our rights,” was the most common claim.

Police told the residents they were not allowed to carry signs or to demonstrate because they had not applied for a licence.

However the protestors kept on lifting their signs and Costa resident Dorinda James made a speech in Spanish. She said they were demonstrating regardless of their political beliefs and they were making the speech in Spanish because they were citizens of Orihuela too.

She said the Partido Popular (PP) had dishonoured Orihuela by allowing illegal developments to go ahead and unscrupulous builders to get away with murder.

She added that PP-run town hall had done nothing to solve the problems on the coast since elections in May.

“Thousands of residents were denied their right to vote in the last elections and the PP won once again,” she said. “Thousands of residents are living in unfinished urbanisations without habitation certificates.

“The public bus on the coast is useless, streets and pavements need to be repaired urgently. We have no land lines, no postal service and rubbish is everywhere.”

Residents asked for more police officers, more health facilities and better education for their children.

“We are 30 per cent of the population,” she said. “Why are we only awarded with five per cent of the municipal budget?”

Many of the demonstrators live in urbanisations built by construction company Tecnología Urbanística. Many of them have no title deeds to their properties and their electricity and water is supplied by the builder.

Residents from Bosque de las Lomas, Monterrey 2, El Galán, Entre Naranjos, Colina de la Pinada, Macarena 2, Colinas de la Zenia and many more asked the town hall to take responsibility for the unfinished urbanisations and for the lack of services.

“We would like the town hall obliged the builder to finish the work,” one resident said.

“If the builder doesn’t do it, the town hall has plenty of money to do it.”

Protestor Pat moved to Colinas de la Zenia two years ago. His neighbours have suffered 11 break-ins in the last two weeks. The street where he lives has no street lights.

Linda and Lisa live in El Galán. They have had their electricity cut by the builder every month since July.

“The cables are lying on the streets,” Linda said.

“The builder should have buried them because they are dangerous, but he hasn’t.

“We have no electricity every time it rains.”

Socialist party (PSOE) councillor Rosa Martínez asked the ruling PP councillors about the measures they intend to carry out to solve the residents’ problems.

The questions will be answered at the next full council meeting in December.

nperez@cbnews.es

i cannot believe that this situation has been allowed to continue for so long.

well done to the protestors ... i hope that the elected representatives will react to try and stop this negative publicity, as they dont seem to have reacted to much in the past!  Negative publicity is bad for PR and bad for tourism.  Maybe when it starts to hit them in the pocket they will start to take notice.

Well said fly. I was reading comments to a certain video put on Youtube, some good some bad. take a look.

http://es.youtube.com/comment_servlet?all_comments&v=NSO31QJwKGQ

The new administration does not appear to be any better then the former. Many communities have been left fighting for a number of years ( 12 plus ) to get their habitation certificates.  Does anyone give a toss, of course not !!!

Toddie

no, they don't give a toss. That goes for all levels right up to the prime minister, which explains much of Spain's current mess. Many of us have learned that the hard way. For the rest it's probably only a matter of time?.  Justice in Spain is at best a lottery, and without the will of the people of Spain to change that, then clearly very little will change. I think most Spanish see corruption, injustice, lies, deception etc from those in positions of legal trust as the normal way in Spain, so they probably don't see any other way as a realistic option?.

Very true. Spain as a country is beautiful but other than that anything to do with legalities, official matters, etc etc etc it's a complete shambles.

........I couldn't agree more, and it seems any help from outside Spain is also not going to happen. We are supposed to abide by EU regs, as if we were a 'body' of people following some sort of common set of rules, but when it comes to help from the EU for those from the UK within that body who have clearly been wronged, then we are very much at the will of the country who has cheated us. The EU don't want to know .....Great eh!!

Toddie, the town hall coffers are in a worst state than they were two years ago, so I can't imagine anything is really going to improve for a few years yet.

And it's not just in your area, unfortunately most town halls are in a similar state.

Interesting article on the subject here

Justin

Hi Justin,  Without mentioning a particular community in the La Zenia Orihuela Costa area the owners have paid out thousands of euros to the Town Hall and for projects costs which should have been paid by the builder.  Now it appears that no one in the Town Hall can give straight answers on the matter of the missing habitation certificates, not very reassuring if they cant trace a bit of paperwork how can anyone have confidence in their ability to be in charge of the public coffers !!