Carlos Rosique | Alicante (EFE) Alicante municipality receives “an investment according to its population weight”.
San Vicente, which for the first time has ranked as the sixth most populous municipality in the province of Alicante, surpassing Alcoy, sees “a possibility of change” hand in hand with a new “urban development” that will transform San Vicente, which ” it has ceased to be a commuter town for Alicante to become a university and service town”.
After three more years focused on “covering all the holes that have been emerging”, the mayor maintains in an interview with Efe that “a vision of the future and not only of the legislature” must be had on the municipality, so it is necessary to continue building infrastructures that allow a locality that also “approaches the industry”.
Consider Saint Vincent
“Our obligation as a municipality is always to ask and to do, and I believe that both the Generalitat and the Alicante Provincial Council have to take into account the potential and effective value of a municipality like San Vicente and the investments to be made”, Villar sentence.
Thus, he adds: “Just as we are always complaining that the Valencian Community is poorly financed or that Alicante is poorly financed, financing and investments towards San Vicente should also be in line with the population weight we have in the province and in the Community.
The socialist leader insists that indeed “having the capital so close and belonging to the same region as Alicante is very conditioned”, because “when investments often have to be made, the county heads are in charge, but he assures that this does not excuse to invest in the city.
Attractive for companies and student residences
The councilor points out that the municipality, which has undergone a transformation in the last 25 years and has gone from 36,291 inhabitants in 1998 to 59,138 a quarter of a century later, is now an attraction for companies that want to reach “one of the municipalities in Spain with more than 50,000 inhabitants with less taxes”.
“Taxes have not been raised in the last eight years,” says Villar, who points out that they intend to carry out an expansion of up to 600,000 square meters of industrial land in two phases, “and if there are no private investors who want to go forward, It will be the City Council itself that will develop that area”.
It emphasizes the importance of San Vicente having “more companies” and that the industrial estate is prepared for logistics centers and distributors, because the city, despite being “of services, must not forget industry” and because “this expansion of the industrial zone will make San Vicente an attractive place to come to work and also to live”.
In this regard, he points out that university residences do not choose Alicante to build, but San Vicente: “Not only is it the chosen place for University of Alicante students to live, but it is one of the top five places of choice to invest in residences of students”, affirms Villar, thus highlighting the projection of the city.
healthy accounts
He also reports that there is a surplus in the City Council of 38 million euros and that the corporation that arrives will find a municipality with “clean coffers” and the opportunity to finish the pavilion, the water center, which should be completed before the end of 2024, or an animal shelter.
However, the problems that have been encountered in recent months to execute the projects, as there are calls that have been abandoned because the companies cannot face the works with 2019 or 2020 budgets, so this implies a delay to the having to redo the projects adding new costs.
Despite this, it affects the possibilities of San Vicente, with the expansion of the Canastell institute, with a “reference” FP in the province, or the creation of a new institute, “two very important issues in which to advance throughout of this next legislature.
University City
Likewise, Villar affirms that the transformation of the municipality will be carried out through the union with the University: “We must be more university students every day and coexist with the University of Alicante, although we are aware that we also depend on private entities”.
“It is very well strategically positioned with all the connections we have with the port, the airport, the suburbs, the tram… I think that people choose San Vicente for its quality of life.”
Finally, he concludes by ensuring that the evolution experienced in the municipality is measured by the fact that the people who arrive in San Vicente “become more and more involved in the daily” municipal and cultural activities, “since people know the importance of both the Week Santa as of the patron saint festivities of Moors and Christians, when he used to go on vacation”. EFE
