Salobreña needs a bus station, but with the coffers empty, even in higher up administrations, as well as the Town Hall’s, it’s not going to happen any time soon.
The latest ‘closed door’ came from the Plan Provincial de Cooperación de Obras y Servicios, belonging to the Provincial Council in Granada. This department (the PPCOS) has had its budget slashed. The Councillor for Public Works in Salobreña, Javier Ortega, explained that grants from the PPCOS are received biannually
The first installment, he explained, which was to be destined for the infrastructure on the plot next to the new access roundabout – installing water, electricity, sewage and access roads – has been cut to 149,826 euros, whereas the sum was originally going to be 219,880 euros. Sr Ortega said that with this reduced quantity, there was no guarantee that this task could be completed.
Instead, he said, the 149,826, once received, would be spent on further tarmacking along Avenida Andalucia and Avenida Mediterráneo. In fact, the Mayor has even suggested asking the Provincial Council for the second installment to be received first, so that renovating work could be carried out on the town’s parks.
The opposition, on the other hand, doesn’t see it that way. They consider that this decision to use the money elsewhere as a serious hold up on the bus station project as this installations already counts on funds earmarked within the Junta de Andalucia‘s budget of 900,000 euros since 2011. It should be remembered that Salobreña and the Junta de Andalucia are governed by the same party, the PSOE, whereas the Provincial Council is run by the PP; i.e., the Salobreña main opposition party.
“Perhaps that funding [the 900,000 euros] doesn’t even exists; hence the problems that are always cropping up,” commented the opposition parties. PP Spokesman Rubén Rodríguez Juárez, says that according to the data held by the Granada College of Architects, installing the infrastructure for the bus-station plot would cost 78 euros per square metre, therefore if the plot has an extension of 1,334 sq/m, the task could be carried out with 110,000 euros.
The Spokesman for the IU, Ángel Coello, suggests that the infrastructure work should be carried out in stages, if there is not enough to do it all at once. That way, he says, we would be on track and not always postponing it.
(News: Salobrena, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)