When the leader of the PSOE stated before the press that the PP had fully backed the governing party’s decision to extend Blue-Zone parking in Velilla, the PP were quick to respond that this was not the case.
They made it perfectly clear that the decision to extend B.Z. parking along the Paseo de Velilla was solely the responsibility of the CA; i.e., the Mayor’s party.
Therefore they are demanding that the PSOE leader, Francisco Prados, publicly rectifies his statement and ceases to lie.
The fine line here is the participation of the PP in the contracting board, whose task claims the PP, is to draw up the conditions of a contract, having established the technical details involved. The contracting board does not decide to whom the contract goes, says the PP.
The PP also claimed that they had always opposed the application of blue-zoning along the town’s paseos, Avenida de Europa, Calle Guadix, etc, as well as in areas of La Herradura. The PP have put forward motions in the plenary meeting of the Town Council, proposing the withdrawal of such B.Z. parking restrictions, but that the Mayor had always refused to accept the motions on the grounds that Traffic & Parking are exclusive competence of the Mayor’s Office.
Editorial Comment
According to the last legislative gem to come out of the Town Hall, all the paseos east of the Altillo will become blue-zone areas; i.e. El Paseo Reina Sofia, El Paseo del Tesorillo and the Paseo, El Pozuelo.
Now, it was reported on the 15th in the Ideal provincial newspaper that this decision was taken with the support of the PP, but as you have read above, this political party denies this, but we’re not talking about a voting session of a plenary council meeting, but on a vote given within the Contracting Board.
The Mayor has awarded the contractual concession of these 409 parking spaces to Estacionamientos Y Servicios SA. (Parking and Services, SA.), which is worth 7,456 euros.
As for the parking times and tariffs, during Low Season, which runs from the 1st of January to the 30th of June and then from the 1st of October to the 31st of December, the parking zones will be in force from 9am until 2pm and 5pm until 8pm. On Saturdays, it will be during the mornings only.
During High Season; i.e. from the 1st of July to the 30th of September, and Semana Santa, the times will be from 11am until 11pm, straight through. The price for both High and Low Season will be 60 cents an hour.
OK, let’s suppose that you want to bathe on El Pozuelo beach, you’ll have to move the car after two hours, which is the maximum parking time, and move it elsewhere… but where? …And you’re in your bathing costume, by the way.
Add to that the economical blight that businesses along Velilla have had to put up with, owing to the underground, car-park works, they will now be confronted by this lunacy.
And lunacy it is, because people come to Almuñécar for the beaches, which are the motor of our economy, yet the Town Hall appears to go out of its way to make it more and more difficult for people to enjoy them and thus, push visitors into the arms of our neighbouring towns, who witness with grateful bemusement the short-sighted, money-grabbing antics of Almuñécar.
Perhaps if the Town Hall had not turned itself into the biggest employer in the township, giving generous and arguably little-justified salaries to apparently superfluous ‘advisory posts,’ then we wouldn’t find ourselves slaughtering our waning golden goose to ‘Feed the Five Thousand.’
(News: Almunecar, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)