The Mayor of Orihuela, Emilio Bascuñana, and the Councillor for Emergencies, Víctor Valverde, have announced that the contract for the building of the Orihuela Costa Emergency Centre has been awarded and work on the long-awaited facility will start this week.
The contract has been awarded to the Oriolan company Doalco for the amount of 2,064,000 euros (VAT included) and that the work will take around 6 months with the Emergency Services Centre, located in La Zenia, being completed by the end of the year.
“This was one of the first actions that we faced and the construction would have been faster if the Valencian Government had assumed the execution of the work as originally planned and had not finally deferred it to the City Council,” the Mayor said.
Councillor Valverde added: “We had to start from scratch, because it was practically a forgotten project and we had to resume talks as there were two different administrations in power before it got off the ground. However, despite all these hurdles, after a lot of work and a lot of effort, the project is a reality and we will start work in a few days .”
The Centre will house the headquarters of the different emergency and security organisations for the Orihuela Costa. These include: National Police, Guardia Civil, Policia Local, SAMU ambulance (summer only), fire crews, Forrest Brigade and Proteccion Civil.
Having a dedicated base for emergency service in Orihuela Costa has been a political hot-potato for many years. Residents, local political parties and organisations have lobbied for it to be built for many years. Currently, emergencies services have to travel to Orihuela Costa from various neighbouring boroughs. This causes delays in people receiving help or treatment and many believe that lives have been lost due to the time lost. This has been a particular issue with ambulance crews not being familiar with coastal areas and address.