PIOC, the political party striving for independence for Orihuela Costa, is reigniting the fight for a Cultural Centre to be built on the coast.
President Peter Houghton said: “While a child in Orihuela Centro can study in a library, learn languages in a public language centre, learn music at the conservatory, or dance, or attend a concert or exhibition, a child in the town of Orihuela Costa cannot do any of that.
“…What we ask the city council is to provide what it has an obligation to provide and it is a Cultural Centre. We at PIOC are going to take our demand for a Cultural Centre to Europe and the Valencian Generalitat not only for the 4,000 children and young people who live in the town of Orihuela Costa, but for all the residents who think they have the right to the same rights as the neighbours of Orihuela Centro.”
The party believes that a good Cultural Centre would improve the housing market – which it believes will see house prices plummet by more than a third of their value – and would encourage people to register on the pardon and in therefore in turn increase services and money for the local government.
Peter Houghton continued that whilst the party does not support claims that the city of Orihuela steals from the coast as some residents believe, PIOC “does believe it mistreats us because our residents pay the same as a neighbours living in the city centre”, but we do not have the same access to services and facilities.
He explained: “And this is why we demand to be a minor local entity. Because it is clear that the city council of Orihuela doesn’t know how to govern the coast. We will take this city council to court, to Europe and the Generalitat for failing to provide a Cultural Centre.
“Unfortunately in their eagerness to give us nothing, the local government push the people of Orihuela Costa towards Independence. They have not learned the lessons of Guardamar del Segura, Pilar de la Horadada, San Miguel de Salinas … .. and they will end up being a small city remembering what they have lost on the way as a result of their clumsiness and lack of vision.”