Residents revolt: 90% of Dénia gets 10% of its funds
Montgó, Las Marinas and Las Rotas put up with potholes and dirt-track roads whilst town centre gets all the development cash, complain locals
PRACTICALLY all Dénia council's financial efforts are ploughed into the main hub of town – just 10% of the municipality, complain residents in urbanisations and country clusters on the outskirts.
Their frustration has multiplied with the launch of the local 'people's vote' on how to spend Dénia's annual development grant, given that all bar one or two minor works are focused on the centre and its immediate outer layers.
A residents' association federation covering those who live in the Montgó, Les Rotes, Las Marinas, Les Deveses and L'Almadrava areas say their neighbourhoods, together with La Xara and Jesús Pobre, account for 90% of Dénia and yet they get less than 10% of the investment.
They say they have shown the council over 8,000 photos of potholes along the 14.5 kilo- metres that make up the 245 roads on the Montgó, and that all the out-of-town districts are lacking in major services and facilities.
Large swathes have no street lights, tarmacked roads or pavements, and those that are in place are in a poor state, many of them flooding whenever it rains, overgrown with kneehigh weeds, or both.
Les Bassetes urbanisation on the Las Marinas road suffers foul stenches, flies, mosquitoes and rats as a result of rain runoff canals leading into the sea remaining stagnant, polluted and full of rotting fish, vegetation and rubbish.
“It seems we're only there to pay for everything that everyone else gets,” said association chairman Mario Vidal.
“The local government has done nothing for us. It's basically ignored us.”