Residents extract bridge pledge from council
Town hall will start procedures this week to seize the bank guarantee, claims councillor
ORIHUELA Costa Residents’ association AVOCA has obtained a promise from the council that it will take action at last to provide safe pedestrian access across the CV-941 bridge over the AP-7 motorway.
The narrow bridge has two lanes for traffic but barely 40 centimetres of hard shoulder, so vehicles have to swerve into the opposite lane to avoid people on foot or bicycles, and visibility is non-existent at night as there is no street lighting. Adding a lane for pedestrians to the bridge was part of the original project to prepare infrastructure in the area for construction of Lomas de Cabo Roig urbanisation, which began in 2004.
However the developer did not carry out the work and the town hall never forced it to, despite years of complaints from residents culminating in 2018 with one of the biggest protests the area has ever seen.
AVOCA submitted a question at the full council meeting last Thursday, pointing out that the previous local government (also a Partido Popular-Ciudadanos coalition) had approved a motion to widen the bridge for pedestrians in 2015.
“As long as this job is not carried out, they are gambling with the lives of numerous people who have to cross the bridge on foot every day to reach the health centre, pharmacy or food shops in Aguamarina,” stated the association.
They also noted that it might be legal to finance all or part of the work with the €1.2 million bank guarantee deposited by the developer.
Nevertheless, halfway through this term of office, neither the mayor nor his coalition partners have announced any progress or forecast any date when the job might be carried out.
AVOCA asked whether the technical plans have actually been drawn up, and if so have they been approved by the ministry for public works; who is responsible for the enormous delay; and what is preventing it from being carried out?
Mayor Emilio Bascuñana did promise to ‘speed up’ the ‘complex’ project, and to allow the residents to access all the information about it in the official dossier.
Town planning councillor José Aix revealed that the technical plans have not yet been drawn up, but claimed that the new bridge could be finished by the end of this legislature, in May 2023. He said the council will start procedures this week to seize the bank guarantee, which will have to be approved in a full council meeting before it can be executed.
A contract to draft the plans would then be put out to tender, then these plans would have to be approved by the ministry for public works before the contract to construct the new bridge can be tendered.
AVOCA pointed out that the ministry already approved the viability of building a parallel bridge in 2018 but has not yet answered the association’s request to see this report.
“It has been over two years since the town hall has had the green light to draw up the plans to widen the road,” they added.