Email
July 19
Torrevieja
Dear Editor,
I don’t know if it’s because of the heat of the tropical nights we’re having or because of the couple of articles I’ve read in the press these days, but tonight I woke up from a nightmare sweating and with tachycardia, which, fortunately, passed quickly when verifying that it was only a nightmare, a dream that could not come true without prior consultation with the citizens, without a new General Plan for Urban Order, being agreed upon and updated with the laws in force in 2022 and not the one of the year 2000 to which the Partido Popular continues to make modifications to it to avoid the regulations that govern the rest of the country. And above all, when the widening of the N-332 continues without being executed.
In the dream, as if I were on astral journey, I was flying over the Torrevieja coast, from Acequión to the end of Playa del Cura and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing…
The tall Baraka towers had swallowed Doña Sinforosa park, which had become a paved area with five poorly distributed bushes. The huge trees from which the city had benefited for many decades and which had formed an important green lung in the area, had been cut down to give views of the sea to the tourist apartments that the towers had been converted into, thanks again, to the change of norms and legislation approved by the party in absolute majority.
The old bus interchange at Las Eras de la Sal, where archaeological remains had been found that were initially considered important, ceased to be important in order to promote the new urban framework of the area to satisfy the needs and commitments acquired with the business network that supported both the towers and the businesses of the new port, without considering either the environmental damage or the effect it would have on downtown businesses just three blocks away.
Paseo Vista Alegre was no longer that, it had become four traffic lanes full of stuck vehicles.
The hundred-year-old palm trees and the vegetation of the old median that somehow refreshed the atmosphere and adorned the coast had completely disappeared to give way to the grey and heat of the asphalt full of intoxicating fumes from the cars trying, some, to reach the underground car park that there was in the new shopping centre created in the port area by the Generalitat and others, trying to get out of the city, fed up with traffic jams and overcrowding but they could not find the smooth exit that the Consistory had planned – three independent exit streets, with a single lane each, which most certainly were continually blocked.
A roundabout of disproportionate proportions was the entrance to the new and immense bus interchange, located in the area of the pizzerias and the famous ‘little blue house’ that, until its demolition, had had several uses over the years (police, tourism information and department of immigration, among others)
From the air, I could see in the distance the new and very high towers of the Curva del Palangre, another pharaonic work supported by the town hall that had been carried out a few years before but that, unfortunately, had been in disuse since the earthquake that devastated the city three years after its construction and that demonstrated the lack of foresight of the council and the construction company in question that did not comply with the state earthquake regulations.
The result was appalling and the population was outraged by the destruction and demolition of what was once a fishing village that, due to the greed of a few, was lost to many.
Thank goodness it was just a dream… or was it?
Regards,
Nacho
