Sports centre reopening row
SPORTS activities have started this week in Orihuela city but residents in Orihuela Costa will have to wait longer for their municipal sports centre ( CDM) to reopen.
The CDM was closed down 17 months ago due to the breach of contract by the company awarded the tender to manage it, and no alternative sporting activities or facilities have been provided in Orihuela Costa by the council since then.
A new contract to run the service was put out to tender in June – 14 months after the facility was closed down - but has not been awarded yet.
Opposition Socialist party ( PSOE) councillor Patricia Menárguez noted that municipal sports activities are
launched every September when school starts and criticised the council’s the lack of interest in providing the service along the coast.
“The tender should have been launched as an urgent procedure in order to shorten the deadlines and get it running in time for September, but instead it was launched as an ordinary hiring procedure” she revealed.
“Orihuela Costa stands on the last rung of the ruling coalition’s list of priorities.”
Councillor Menárguez lamented that residents have no choice but to use the sports facilities in Torrevieja and Pilar de la Horadada.
The CDM was closed without prior notice in April 2019, leaving hundreds of schoolchildren and residents without sporting activities.
Residents’ associations and opposition parties asked the council to manage the facilities and the sports activities directly, instead of putting them out to tender and hiring a private company, but their pleas went unheeded.