To help make it even easier to send in information, photographs, or questions that relate to the campaign an additional email address has been set up, it is cleanupthecosta@gmail.com .
Alternatively the Los Verdes address of losverdesorihuela@yahoo.es can be used.
Monday, May 19, 2008
Friday, May 16, 2008
We were told they'd been cleaned, but they haven't !
Having said in my previous post that there is good news about the cleaning of the sites notified to Councillor for the Coast, Sr. Aniorte, I have to report some bad news!
Other sites on the list presented to Clr. Aniorte will be visited in the coming days to check on the progress of the clean-up.
Having been given the assurances that the clean-up of rubbish on public areas would be completed within three weeks from
The following are examples and I invite the reader to spot the difference. The dates the photographs were taken are shown on them.
Calle Sagitario
“En contestación a la petición por parte de los verdes a don Jose Antonio Aniorte, y recibiendo por parte del mismo ordenes de revisar, comprobar y contestar a su petición, les informo:
las siguientes calles ya habian sido limpiadas y retirados los vertidos solidos antes de la reunión mantenida con el concejal de la costa:
cl Sagitario,”
(Translation by Google Translate)
In reply to the request by the Greens to don Jose Antonio Aniorte, and receiving by the same orders to revise, check and reply to their request, they reported:
The following streets had been cleaned and removed the rubbish before the meeting with the councilman from the coast:
cl Sagittarius,
You see from the photographs that not all the locations within this road have been cleaned.
Before
After
In order to be fair I should point out that these are in an area that might be considered as C/ Pluton as it's at the junctionof the two
Calle Niagara
Javier Canovas wrote:
“A continuación le informo de las que han sido visitadas personalmente por Javier Cánovas:
cl
Here inform those that have been personally visited by Javier Cánovas:
cl
Before:
Green Zone Barranca corner of C/Niagara & C/Iguazo
See quotes above.
Before:
After:
Other sites on the list presented to Clr. Aniorte will be visited in the coming days to check on the progress of the clean-up.
Good News, The council have started the Clean-up
Following the meeting with Councillor Aniorte on
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"Dear Elliot. As you can see, the rubbish has now been cleared, ..........Many thanks."
"HI good morning You may be pleased to hear (and see) that some clearance work was started on the "rubbish tip" at the end of our cul de cac yesterday morning....Hope this is of some use to you. Good luck with the campaign."
"Action at last!!!!
Thanks to you all, as at last the large amount of rubbish in front of Bosque De Las Lomas 1 and 8 is (hopefully) being removed. A man and a digger has been moving it into large mounds, hopefully to be removed completely.
.........Thanks again - greatly appreciated."
"Hi,
Thought you would like to know, that the rubbish was cleared away yesterday, well at least it has been put into neat piles. I assume it may be taken away at some time.
One wonders how long it will take before people start to fly tip there again"
"Thank you for your update on the Fly-Tipping problem.
Whether your drive has had immediate effect, I do not know, but on Thursday and Friday the mound of debris behind Mercadona was mostly removed."
"I have attached some photos of the recently cleared land next to Bosque 8. As you said at the meeting, the topsoil has been totally destroyed, leaving nothing but sand. I can't say I'm impressed with the clean-up, as some larger items have been left behind. The people next to it are now complaining about the dust, which to be fair was horrendous the other day when it was quite windy. The area is now being used as a dog toilet, even by the people who live opposite! However, it does look better than it did before - but for how long??"
"This is to confirm that the plot of land on Calle
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It is good news that the Council have started to honour their duty of keeping the environment we live in clear of rubbish. It’s a pity though that it has been necessary to have this campaign to remind them of their responsibility to the inhabitants of Orihuela.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Email by S Pokroppa for the Partido Popular
This is the English text of the email issued by
The Partido Popular have been in power controlling the
THIS IS NOT AN INITIATIVE BY THE PP, BUT A FORCED REACTION!
The email was issued in three languages, English, Spanish, and German.
“Message from the 0ffice of the Councillor for European Residents, Beaches & Infrastructure, Orihuela Costa.
We would like to ask all the residents of the Orihuela Costa for their cooperation and assistance in identifying the illegal fly-tipping throughout our area. We also want to penalise the culprits and your help in identifying them is also essential.
Orihuela is a large municipality covering a large geographical area and a rapid response from responsible citizens in identifying the illegal fly-tipping area quickly, and if possible, those responsible, will assist us to clear the problem areas and bring the offenders to account. For this reason it is very important that the Police, all the workers and all the Residents are cooperating with the town hall.
Whenever an illegal fly-tipping is taking place please inform us by phone on 96 676 00 00, or come personally to the town hall to inform us. It would help if you could provide, if possible, photos of the incident or the fly-tip, and the exact address of the location. With your help it will be easier to start the process of cleaning our area and please keep in mind that because of the size of our municipality and the sheer volume of vacant land, it is very difficult for us to know all the existing rubbish tips, so we need your help.
The team at the town hall are fully committed and are very conscious of the wonderful potential we have in our area, and it is in all our interests to keep it clean and tidy. Fly-tipping problems can be sorted out quickly by bringing them direct to the town hall. Bringing these problems to the newspapers will not solve the problems and will only delay their eventual resolution.
The office of the councillor for European Residents, Beaches and Infrastructure Orihuela Costa, together with the headed councillor, are people willing to work without a break until this matter is resolved to everybody’s satisfaction and the offenders are penalised.
Your local town hall team is asking all of you, the residents of Orihuela Costa, for your cooperation. This is also your municipality and with your help we can make this area an even better place to live and an area of what we can all be proud.”
The text of the last sentence in the fourth paragraph has caused concern amongst some of the residents on the Costa and has been interpreted as a veiled threat by the PP.
There is a very big flaw in the message of the email. Reference is made to “ penalise the culprits”, “bring the offenders to account”, and ” the offenders are penalised” but this cannot happen at the moment as there is no Byelaw in relation to any matters relevant to the problem of Fly-tipping. Councillor Aniorte has admitted this fact.
The PP have had 20 years in power to sort this out but only now act to correct their own failure. Their own failure to ensure that the residents of the
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
The Campaign to date
Let me begin this first post by apologising for the length of it, but it’s necessary to detail the history to date.
The launch of the campaign was made at a press conference held in Orihuela Costa on the 26th march 2008. Between the 28th march 2008 and
The following is the Press Release issued on the 26th March 2008.
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Los Verdes (The Green Party) of Orihuela - Press Release.
No More Fly-Tipping – Clean up the Costa.
Fly-tipping, the act of illegal dumping large amounts of rubbish such as building waste, furniture, white goods and other such items on any land or street, is the scourge and blight on the environment, effecting both the urban and countryside areas alike in the Orihuela Costa region.
Los Verdes (The Green Party) are launching a Campaign to make the Orihuela Ayuntamiento aware of the locations of the many Fly-tipping sites that are ruining and damaging the quality of the environment, the quality of life of the inhabitants of the area, and ultimately the economic future of the area.
The aim of the Campaign is to supply the PP Council, through the office of the Councillor for the Coast, José A. Aniorte Grau, with photographs and specific location details of all the illegal, ugly, and dirty Fly-tipping sites within the Orihuela Costa area.
This will hopefully be the shove that the PP Council needs to act to honour its duty, to maintain the environment in a clean and natural condition. This will be a reminder to them of their need to rectify their failure of duty of care to the environment and the inhabitants of Orihuela Costa, and if they choose not to act, as they have failed to in the past, we will name and shame them by all the means available to us, including our Councillors raising this matter in future Council meetings.
To ensure the Campaign is as successful as possible Los Verdes (The Green Party) need the help and involvement of all the Inhabitants of Orihuela Costa. We need to work as a team.
We are asking Residents to send us photographs of any illegal Fly-tipping sites that they are aware of in the area, along with the details of the exact location and the date the photograph was taken. If they see actual acts of illegal dumping taking place, to take a photograph, so long as they do not put themselves in danger, showing details of the vehicle and business name if possible, if it’s a company vehicle.
The photographs and details should be sent by email to – losverdesorihuela@yahoo.es with the subject title of “Fly-tipping”. Los Verdes (The Green Party) will collate all the information received and will forward it to the Council for them to act as they should, to clean up the areas, and to take action to stop it happening again.
We also ask the local papers to help with the Campaign, by forwarding any photographs and information that they receive from residents, if this is easier for some of their readers, to us at the Los Verdes (Green Party) email address, and also by allocating a small area of space in their publications, as a type of name and shame gallery. This could include both sites where Fly-tipping has occurred and not been cleaned up, but also any pictures of culprits carrying out illegal dumping.
We do not want to live within an illegal landfill site, to be surrounded by, and have to live amongst the filth created by Fly-tippers and ignored by the Council!
Los Verdes (The Green Party) ask for the help and involvement of the inhabitants, of the coast, to force the PP Council to honour its responsibility to keep Orihuela Costa clean and a fit place to live!
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The response by the residents of Orihuela Costa was excellent.
On
The result of the meeting was that Los Verdes were assured by Councillor Aniorte on behalf of the ruling PP Council, that all the sites on the list, that are on public land, would be cleaned up within a period of three weeks from the 17th April 2008, but that there isn’t any Council Byelaw (Ordenanza Municipal) in existence within the municipality to be able to ensure a clean up of fly-tipping on private property at this time.
The situation that there isn’t any Byelaw in relation to the problem of Fly-tipping is unacceptable. Los Verdes will continue to push the PP ruled Council to draw up and present to the Pleno (Council Meeting), for approval, the required Byelaws.
Two days after the meeting with Sr Aniorte, Los Verdes received emails from a few of those who had contributed to the campaign, by sending us photographs of fly-tipping sites, to confirm that the council were starting to honour their duty of cleaning up the rubbish.
On
On
On
The following article appeared in the Leader newspaper http://www.costablancaleader.com/news/article.php?article_id=15286&article_section_id=1 .
“Green Party Propose Citizens’ Participation for Clean Up
(Published:
The Green Party held a ‘Clean up the Costas’ meeting last Tuesday, May 5th in a bid to put together a plan of action to get the area looking more pristine and attractive.
Los Verdes are the third largest party in Orihuela, with three councillors. They initiated the ‘No More Fly Tipping’ campaign a few weeks ago after becoming fed up of living in squalor and tired of waiting for the PP to eradicate the problem. The campaign was taken up with so much vigour by local residents that it became apparent that people felt very strongly about the filth all around them.
On March 31st the front page story in the ‘Leader’ about the campaign acted as a catalyst, with hundreds of readers sending in photos of fly tipping sites. The reaction was so strong that a press conference was called on April 9th, which was covered by Spanish media, and newspaper websites; the problem becoming visible for the whole world to see.
According to Elliot Sampford, the party spokesman, “The local government was obviously not happy with the widespread publicity and could not bury their head in the sand any longer. After being in power for 20 years they have finally decided to start cleaning certain sites up.”
The main problem appears to be that fly tipping is not illegal in Orihuela Costa, there is no by law like those that exist in neighbouring municipalities such as Torrevieja or Pilar de la Horadada, which forbids fly tipping.
However, the comments which came from those present at the meeting were that “We don’t want to live in a land fill site, we want to live on clean streets. We are not rats.” Another person commented on the fact that the mess is depressing and that visitors have to pass the rubbish. Other complaints were that the bin men should sweep up any rubbish they spill after emptying the bins.
It seems that the root of the problem is that in the whole of Orihuela municipality there is no eco park, and no where for builders to dispose of their rubble, hence people dumping their rubbish late at night, on waste land.
The Green Party then went on to suggest we take up a project which has worked very successfully in the
One local resident commented at the meeting that in one road they had cleaned up a plot of wasteland and once it was clean, people stopped dumping rubbish on it, so it did stay clean. Another resident commented on the fact that there is a proven correlation between clean areas and a drop in crime. One lady had another idea. She had stood in her local park and given out doggy bags to all the dog walkers passing by. This had made a huge difference to the state of the park and people had continued to pick up their dog excrement ever since.
It appears that small actions can result in big change. It is no good sitting back and complaining, which we Brits in general are very good at doing. As Elliot mentioned, Orihuela Costa is a huge area and the Town Hall alone cannot solve all the problems alone. We all need to play a positive role in improving the area. “When you see some rubbish in the road, pick it up and dispose of it.”
The Green Party suggested people send in to their web site before and after photos of areas which have been cleaned.
Another suggestion was to encourage people to recycle for the good of the whole world, through education. In other areas of
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Work is now in progress to plan and launch the next stages of the campaign.
I think that brings this history up-to-date, but I’m bound to have forgotten something.
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