Dénia roadworks box cars in for 'up to six months'

Residents furious as three-week works could take up to half a year to complete

FURIOUS residents in Dénia have been unable to use their cars for over three weeks as they are boxed in by roadworks that could take up to six months to finish.

One woman has managed to get hers out after threatening to take the council to court and receiving a call from the mayor the very next day.

The central Calle Colón (see photo), which runs parallel with the main Marqués de Campo boulevard, has been shut to traffic since January 29, when major renovation works started.

But nobody thought to warn motorists who had left their vehicles in a private indoor car park now surrounded by an open trench.

The woman who threatened legal action was guided off the premises in her car after workmen filled a chasm in the street with sand, but she says it was a very precarious operation.

She said she had been out of town when the works started, but that the council had not bothered to put up warning signs. The council claims they did erect signs, but that someone had taken them down.

She says she now has to find somewhere to leave her car overnight, which is nearly impossible in Dénia, despite having paid a fee to the council for her habitual space on Calle Colón which she is now unable to use.

Builders had previously refused to put planks across the trenches when asked, saying car-owners would have to wait until the works were finished.

Two cars remain trapped, but the owner of one of them says he is not expecting to drive anywhere for the foreseeable future and has left his inside 'because it is safer there'.