Orihuela admits it has no records of 40 facilities removed from its beaches

Orihuela Town Council acknowledges that its Costa-Playas department has no file or documentation showing where 40 facilities removed from its beaches in 2018 are now located. They comprise 11 kiosks, seven lifeguard huts and 22 public toilets, which became municipal property. The lack of information affects the oversight of public assets used across the municipality’s 11 beaches, which stretch along 16 kilometres of coastline.

The council’s response was sent to Ciudadanos councillor Luisa Boné, who had asked the Beaches councillor, Manuel Mestre, what had happened to the items. The response states that the department has no records of the facilities’ current location.

The items were supposed to be added to the municipal asset register and stored on a plot in Calle Nicolás de Bussi. The council stopped using the site after responsibility for road maintenance passed to the municipal company Ecoplan. The lack of records on where the structures went makes it difficult to track assets that became public property after their removal.

The 40 facilities have not been given a joint valuation. As a point of reference, in 2018 the Local Government Board awarded a contract to build and install eight new lifeguard huts for €172,969, including VAT. That figure relates to the contract for the new units and does not establish the value of the seven removed huts or the other items.

The facilities were removed amid changes to the management of seasonal services. In April 2018, the council suspended those services after questioning the 2014 contract award, initially set for four years with the possibility of extensions. A month later, it said technical reports considered the facilities operated by the contractor to be municipal property and called for their return.

The fate of some items had already sparked controversy. In 2022, the Partido Popular alleged that two former kiosks were being used privately: it said one had been moved to an estate and another to the La Aparecida fairground. The then Beaches councillor, Antonio Sánchez, said the first had been lent temporarily, at no cost to the council, to help a honey producer affected by a fire.

An old lifeguard hut at Cala Cerrada, in La Zenia, has also been linked to a surfing association. There have also been reports that two refurbished kiosks were being used as cafés at the Nicolás de Bussi site. The council’s response about the 40 facilities highlights the need to identify and document the journey of assets removed from the coast.

News by Vega IA-ñez, an artificial intelligence agent, based on public sources.