SunSeaNews 5 Oct: DĂ©nia, Calp, housing and Terra MĂtica discounts
Good Morning đ âïž
Are you ready for todayâs weekly roundup? Letâs pull up a lounger on the terrace and see whatâs been happening in our little oasis,
Letâs start with the weather. Orange warnings, an ES-Alert on the phone ,it made me jump. San AndrĂ©s no-parking signs back up in DĂ©nia, the Friday market pulled, Fira Stock postponed, a few towns cancelling Friday classes while others kept the doors open. The DĂ©niaâXĂ bia sailing trophy is off until they find a dry weekend. That is the weather. The rest of the week was more interesting.
Start with La Pedrera. On Wednesday afternoon part of a ceiling came down in a room on the third floor of the HACLE in DĂ©nia. It landed on a patientâs bed. The frame of the bed took a hit. The bedside table did not. SATSE says the room had only just been done up, and they want the patch-jobs stopped and the building sorted properly. Everyone walked away. That is luck, not a plan.
Housing is the other argument that will not lie down. A place on the front at Les Rotes is on the market for 10.5 million, dressed up with an American luxury badge and a name, Casa Punta Negra. Drive inland and the average house in the Vall dâEbo is being talked about at 62,400 euros. XĂ bia and Teulada sit around 540,000 in the middle of that sentence. In DĂ©nia itself, buyers under 31 are about 3 in every 100. The typical buyer is 53. In Les Marines, one community has just waved through 15 more tourist-let licences in a single block. Communities, it turns out, do not stop these. More problems are on the horizon if nothing is done soon.
A DĂ©nia firm wants to spend 2.6 million on a campsite at La Xara: 104 pitches on a plot of nearly 24,000 square metres, tents, vans and cabins, room for 359 people. File that next to the Les Rotes price and tell me it is the same town.
DĂ©nia is also retendering the blue zone. Bizum to pay, more boards showing free spaces, digital fines. Two tariffs stay, with the 60-minute cap still in the mix. If you are the person who still feeds the machine with coins, your days are numbered.
The Club NĂ utic paseo rebuild, nearly 5 million, starts this month. Evening walks will be dusty for a while.
Calp is putting almost 600,000 euros into the roads at Empedrola, Cometa and Canuta. Resurfacing, drainage, about three months once someone wins the tender. Years of patches up there, so if you live on those streets, believe it when the cones arrive. Quieter news from the same town: Banys de la Reina, the Roman baths, has had just under 5,000 visitors in its first year of regular opening. Free guided routes. Worth an afternoon if you have walked past the fence for a decade and never gone in. And the 2027 chessboard has a new piece. Domingo SĂĄnchez, ex-PP, says he will stand for a new local outfit, Calpe Unidos por el Cambio, on cleaning and parking. Of course it is cleaning and parking.
Altea spent the week arguing about the market. The town hall wants a structural fix and has set aside 283,000 euros to rent an industrial tent for 14 months so the stalls can keep trading, possibly on the square outside the ayuntamiento if the reports agree. The PP says this is not modernisation, it is a safety job they were bounced into, and abstained. PSOE and CompromĂs passed it. If you buy the tomatoes there, the tent is the bit that will actually affect your Saturday.
Benissa has extended the public showing of its new structural plan to 30 November, so allegaciones have a longer runway. Use it if that plan touches your street. El Verger has been in fiesta mode since 30 September, through to the 4th. DĂ©nia is stretching DĂa de la Pilota into a full week, including a day on the womenâs game. And Els Magazinos has PorrĂł Fest from 9 to 12 October, beer and local food in the old market. Ojos Rojos, the author-photography festival, is back in XĂ bia and DĂ©nia if you want something that is not a porrĂł.
Benidorm was declared a day of official mourning after a woman was killed in the city. DĂ©nia held a minuteâs silence for her. I am leaving it there. Separately, the eviction of Pedro, 95, due this Monday, has been put back a month. The flat was in his daughterâs name. She died. He and his wife are on non-contributory pensions and could not clear what the bank says is owed. A month is not a home. It is a month.
Terra MĂtica, and then I will stop punishing myself. Halloween runs there from 3 October to 1 November, with the 31st open until 1 am. Horror Nights are on the Saturday evenings, 3, 10, 17 and 24, Iberia after dark, not for under-14s. The Sunday deal is the one I missed. Adult tickets 2-for-1 every Sunday in October if you type MEDUSATM on the promotions tab before you pay. I bought two full-price tickets and found the code afterwards, in the car park, like a woman who does not read the small poster. Sundays left in the month are still on it. Check the park page. I will be here, slightly poorer, not mentioning it again. Much.
Right. That is the week, damp terrace and all.
The orange alert has packed up, the San AndrĂ©s signs can come down when the town hall says so, and I am still not talking about the Terra MĂtica code. Much. If something on your street did not match what I have written, drop me a message. The good stuff usually arrives that way, after the papers have moved on.
If you want a drier read while the cushions dry out, Snoopyâs book is out now on Amazon: Paws & Mischief: Tales of a Tale Wagging Troublemaker. Chapter 1 is still on the site. The rest of the mischief, puddles and all, is in the book, with Isabellaâs drawings. For the small people, and for anyone who has ever lost an argument with a small dog.
Iâll be sat out here wishing the sun back, same as half the Marina Alta. Take care, and if you want this every Friday without hunting for it, hit subscribe. The newsletter is the terrace version: Costa Blanca North, no brochure.
Joanne xxx