Albuñol’s Narrower Paseo

The Mayor of Albuñol has taken the decision to make the town’s paseo narrower to improve traffic flow. Not everybody agrees with the decision.

Anybody who’s been to Albuñol will have seen that the town has a paseo the width of an runway for 747’s; drivers, on the other hand, by comparison the Avenida 28 de Febrero is narrow as far as 2-way traffic goes.

So, the Town Hall has taken the decision to eliminate the trees lining the paseo and grab three metres of paseo – don’t worry; there still plenty left.

Many in town, including the chief opposition party, the PSOE, aren’t happy with this, probably because the loss of trees is involved. In fact, back in 2011, there was a citizen movement to protest against such a move. The PSOE, for example, have accused the Mayor, Juan María Rivas, of ‘destroying’ the town’s only paseo. Some of the trees, they complain, are 30 years old.

The Mayor, on the other hands, considers that the move was requested by the townsfolk, pointing out that the paseo is eight metres wide (yep, eight!) and would be reduced to four.

“Four metres is more than sufficient,” he reasons, pointing out that it will end up with the same width as the Avenida de Salobreña in Motril. Readers might remember than when the Motril one was widened to its present width, there were complaints about the reduction of parking spaces.

But in Albuñol, like just about any town across Spain, the PSOE and PP are always disagreeing about everything. The Albuñol PSOE complain that the Mayor behaves like a ‘cacique’ (dictator) and uses his four councillor seats to dominate the Town Council. The fact of the matter is that the PSOE has one more councillor seat than the PP but the other opposition parties, totalling four councillors, don’t appear to back the PSOE.

So, trees apart, does anybody in Albuñol really think that they need an 8-metre wide paseo and a road too narrow by comparison?

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(News: Albuñol, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)