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Elche gets six homes to use in case of social emergencies

Elche

The Local Government Board gave the go-ahead to buy six homes owned by SAREB so that they can be fixed up as part of a scheme to build more public housing that is paid for by the State Plan for Access to Housing 2022–2025, also known as the ADHA Plan.

Celia Lastra, Councillor for Social Action, said that in February 2024, the Local Government Board agreed to ask for a subsidy to buy these six homes owned by SAREB. This was because the council wanted to buy these properties to increase the number of public housing units and put them on a rental or transfer of use regime with a maximum rent or transfer price for use, especially for vulnerable groups.

With the help of the 342,500 euro grant, these 6 homes in various parts of the town were bought. “This purchase increases the number of public housing units in Elche and, most importantly, we will have more housing options under a social rental regime and/or transfer of use for emergency housing,” Lastra said. These homes are meant to help families who are housing insecure and can’t afford to rent at market rates because of their income.

The meeting also agreed to the free transfer of the “Hort de Malena” palm grove, which is in the middle of the city, next to the Tower on the road to the Mills, and surrounded by public gardens.

As stated by Inma Mora, the City Council’s goal is to restore and raise the value of the traditional homes and buildings in the “Hort de Malena” palm grove so that people can learn about and share the historical and cultural values that these buildings and homes represent, as well as the palm grove itself and its water systems. There will be no changes to the deal for 10 years.

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It has also been cleared to build the Maestro José Toro social centre in Torrellano, which will be situated between the streets of Libertad, Alcudia, Astronautas, and Violeta. As part of this project, a new 1,900-square-meter space will be built to serve more than 7,000 people from the Torrellano, Santa Ana, Balsares, Saladas, and Jubalcoy areas.

The new cultural and social centre will have two floors. The first floor will have a big hall that can fit 466 people, 350 on the ground floor and 166 in the amphitheatre.

The Torrellano social centre project has been approved by the Local Government Board.

The reading room/library and the amphitheatre for the assembly hall will be on the first floor, along with the association offices and music school. The OMAC, cafeteria, and assembly hall will be on the ground floor.

The Civil Aviation report has now been given to the City Council. This is something that the municipal company Pimesa needs in order to be able to put out the bids for the building contract next week.

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The Governing Board did agree to the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility’s request for direct aid for passenger transport. This will lower the prices of transport passes and multi-trip tickets for urban public transport services for the first half of 2025, from January 1 to June 30. They also agreed to make a deal with the service concessionaire to carry out the aid. With these direct helps, the price is cut in half, and the City Council pays for an extra 20%.

As one of the things that wasn’t on the list, the contract for the adaptation works at the central interchange of Doctor Caro and Alfredo Llopis streets has been extended for two more months, until April 11.

InvoLUCRA SL, the winning bidder, said, “They have proposed this extension because, once the urban bus shelter had been moved and the second section of Calle Alfredo Llopis had been torn down, services were found to be in use that were not reflected in the plans that were available for the preparation of the project.” This meant that the foundations and slabs of the two pergolas in that section had to be moved around to fit the available space. This caused the project to be delayed, and the stormwater network had to be moved to a new well that had to be built in the middle of the street.

The project has an investment of about 900,000 euros and is partly paid for by European Next Generation funds.

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Costa Blanca

One killed in accident near the AP-7 exit at Ondara

Denia Lorry Crash

The firefighters at the Dénia station worked a long night, not only extracting the deceased driver but also preventing the fire from spreading to the two colliding vehicles.
The images depict how the smaller vehicle, whose occupant was killed instantaneously, was transformed into an unrecognisable mass of metal.

This morning was an extremely difficult and busy night for the Provincial Fire Consortium, particularly the firemen at the Dénia fire station. They were hard at work responding to the accident at the AP-7 exit in Ondara, on the bridge over the N-332, where a horrific collision occurred. As stated by this newspaper, a huge trailer crashed with a smaller crane vehicle, killing the driver instantaneously.

In addition, the two occupants of the larger truck were injured and transported to Dénia Hospital. Heavy traffic bottlenecks ensued.

Firefighters, who provided these photographs depicting how the smaller vehicle had been reduced to an unrecognisable pile of twisted metal, had to remove the deceased, stop diesel spills, keep both vehicles from catching fire, and clear the route.

Meanwhile, Guardia Civil and Local Police officials directed traffic coming from the highway, Dénia, and other nearby towns. The First Security Force’s traffic investigation department has launched an investigation to identify the cause of the collision, which saw the two vehicles collide nearly head on.

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Residents of San Miguel demand more public housing

House Construction

The San Miguel de Salinas Residents’ Association has filed an appeal against the final approval of the third revision to the SUS-A partial plan “Los Invernaderos.” This appeal comes after the group’s 21 objections were dismissed.

The alteration they oppose proposed increasing density and consolidating it in eight towers with ground floors and seven high-rise structures in the development’s proximity to the town centre, as well as situating social housing on the same land, they claim.

The number of dwellings in this partial plan has risen from 1,582 to 2,204 since its first approval. They protest that only 90 units are classified as public housing.

According to the association’s reasoning, the land earmarked for social housing should be 30% of the residential buildable area in the area, which equates to 48,886 m2. These 90 reserved homes total slightly over 11,000 m2.

According to the association’s statement, the legal department’s reaction is that this rule applies to “rural land that will be included in new development projects,” which is incorrect because the area is already heavily urbanised.

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Another criticism raised by this group is that social housing not be concentrated on the same plot, as this would be a “segregationist” decision with no integration.

They also point out that the sector is divided into two half by a promenade, with no infrastructure connecting the two regions of development, allowing people to move more freely.


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Costa Blanca

Increase in fighting at Orihuela Costa High School

High School

Fights at Playa Flamenca Secondary School or its vicinity are constantly recorded. “Everything is as bad as ever,” says one mother. The difference is that Pandora’s box was opened four months ago, following the murder of Cloe, 15, allegedly by her 17-year-old ex-boyfriend. Both young women attended the only secondary school in Orihuela Costa. She was in her fourth year of compulsory secondary education, and he was doing vocational training during the afternoon shift after dropping out of his first year of high school. Now, she says, there is a daily police presence, and parents are making complaints.

The films all follow a similar pattern: guys and girls fighting while being cheered on by the crowd. In many situations, the confrontations begin within the school and then spread to the street, or they are pre-planned and a “get-together” is organised to observe and record them in real time.

Expulsions of implicated students have occurred in recent days, but the prevalent perception is that no decisive action or measures to solve the situation are being implemented.

Local police sources confirm that they have escalated. Although cops have been working on this issue with the juvenile unit for over a year and have increased police presence, the same sources admit that it is a difficult problem to fix. Meanwhile, the centre’s management declined to comment.

After Cloe’s suspected killer sliced her throat in an alley in La Florida, the Parents’ Association stated that the school, which has roughly 1,000 kids, had been a true “breeding ground for crime” for years.

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They described it as a pressure cooker, with no lack of fights, assaults, harassment, abuse, alcohol-related comas, narcotics, truancy, and firearms. In fact, at the start of the school year, a 12-year-old girl was brutally beaten and hospitalised, prompting a meeting at the Coastal Emergency Centre between the IES and the two coastal schools, the councillors for Education, Coastal, and Citizen Security, the Local Police (with their gender-based violence and truancy units), and the Civil Guard.

It was also discovered that certain people near the school give out little amounts of narcotics for free in order to “hook” young people and subsequently “recruit” them to conduct criminal crimes such as stealing cell phones or other products and trafficking in substances. In this setting, and once inside the “network,” many of them are equipped with knives and switchblades for protection.

The imprisoned minor’s surroundings were tied to a group that committed petty crimes such as theft and squatting. He frequented “the Chinaman’s house,” along with other young people who went there to do drugs and party. This unfinished residential complex has become a hotspot of disturbances in recent years, as reported by neighbours whose properties are across the street or only a few steps away.

This is one of the terraced houses on Calle Nutria that has been abandoned for more than a decade, about 500 metres from where the Guardia Civil believes the young man burnt his clothes and the knife in a semi-ruined warehouse next to a water tank on Morral Street, very close to the alley where Cloe received a cut on her neck that killed her shortly after in Torrevieja Hospital.

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