ORIHUELA OUTLOOK

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In the next plenary meeting, the municipal council of Orihuela hope to pass a motion which would remove the age restriction on the Civic Hall which is based on the Orihuela Costa. Currently, legislation dictates that the facilities can only be used by people of pensionable age, which restricts the use of the building for the majority of residents who fund it. By removing the restriction, it would allow for youth and adult groups to hold conferences and courses and make the building more suitable to suit the needs of all Orihuela Costa residents.

The next step in creating a reading centre on the Orihuela Costa has been made, with the thousands of donated books being catalogued and sorted, all done by volunteers, and now a premises has been identified that can be used by residents and visitors to meet, select books and read, although satisfying the practical needs of a library, this now comes without the additional expense. Councillor for the coast, Martina Scheurer, explained that a building which was constructed by the regional government as a nursery school is currently vacant, as the regional government withdrew funding, but this building can now be utilized for other things, and so this building will be operated by more volunteers and become a “reading point”, as has already been the case in hosting language classes.

The Ociopía shopping centre in Orihuela joined in the plight of the global awareness of environmental matters this year, by partaking in the 2013 Earth Hour, in which the centre would switch off its lights for the hour of 8pm, a standard, local time across the globe, as a darkened beacon in the flood of electricity that draws on the planets resources every day.

The councillor for infrastructure, Antonia Moreno, has announced that Orihuela will be conducting an energy audit, with the hope of saving half a million euro in street lighting costs. The first stage will be collating information on street lights and other electrical outlet points, before assessing where savings can be made on the 4.5 million euro bill, over a period of ten years.

Former councillor for the coast and tourism, Pedro Mancebo, is urging the bi-party coalition government to complete a project started during his tenure, that of the production of a guide book detailing the values of the mountainous paths that surround the municipality, as this would encourage tourism to one of the most unique and beautiful areas of this part of Spain. The content of the guide has already been collated, with hikers and mountaineers all collaborating in cataloguing the routes, the only hurdle being a budget with which to print the guide.

Despite not being awarded the contract for beach safety on the Orihuela Costa this Easter, the Cruz Roja of Orihuela is running a course in becoming a life guard, which combines both theory and practice into a 100 hour training program, resulting in a qualification that could allow those who pass to work in the sector for both their own, none profit making organisation, or for one of the private, profit making companies that bid for the work of keeping the beaches safe. Open to anybody over the age of 18, with a First Aid qualification, applications can be made via the Cruz Roja in Orihuela.

Filed under: http://www.theleader.info/article/38306/

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