Orihuela Council might be going to replace our missing street-name signs.

It could be good news; it seems likely that the Orihuela Council might be going to replace our missing street-name sign.

Following my previous article 'OrihuelaCosta's missing street-name signs' on this weblog, the publication of it in 'The Leader' newspaper, and reference to it in 'ThePost', it seems the influence of modern media and the local printed press has caused a reaction.

Today I received the following email from the Town Hall:

“Buenos días Sr. Sampford:

Para poder gestionar adecuadamente su petición de reposición de placas indentificativas de nombre de calle, le solicitamos nos haga llegar su petición a través de la ventanilla de registro, por medio de instancia registrada, a fin de que el Departamento competente realice las actuaciones necesarias para su resolución.

No obstante, reenvío copia del presente para conocimiento del Concejal de Infraestructuras, Pedro Mancebo.

Sin otro particular, reciba Vd. un cordial saludo.”

[My translation is:

Good morning Mr. Sampford:

In order to be able to act appropriately to your request for the replacement of street-name signs, we ask you to send us your request through the registration window, so your application is registered, in order that the responsible department will carry out the necessary actions for a resolution.

However, a copy of this is being forwarded to the Councillor for Infrastructure, Pedro Mancebo for his information.

Without further ado, yours sincerely.]

I wait with interest. Will a new sign be fitted to our royal blue pole, to give it back its purpose in life, or will they remove it instead? I ponder this question because of the comment Graham added to my initial article.

“we had 2 installed in Calle Leman. One blue post remains at the bottom of the street but no sign, the other blue post was removed by the Council 12 months,the hole filled in and the signpost has never been replaced.We therefore have no indication as to the location of Calle Leman which is the postal address for 5 communities off Calle Leman. I emailed the Town Hall and was, like you was advised that I had to visit the Town Hall to make an Official Denuncia in Spanish!! That was 6 months ago!! Still no action. Will have to make another visit and try again as emergency services are now having problems finding houses.”

What about the other streets with no names?

Has someone from each street got to travel to the magical window in the Orihuela Costa Town Hall?

Why can't the Town Council administration system accept emails as official documented requests and forward a copy of the email to the respective department? It's not too difficult to click on the forward button.

Why can't the Town Hall have a section on its website for residents to complete and register denuncias on-line? If I can think of the idea why hasn't one of the highly paid Councillors, or Councillor's Advisers, thought of and instigated such a system? Just a thought . . .

Orihuela Costa's missing street-name signs.

Dotted around the streets of Orihuela Costa there are numerous two metre tall royal blue poles that have lost their purpose in life: standing alone, forlorn, ignored by passers-by.

Calle Leman

Sometime ago the Orihuela Town Council decided that the time had come when every road should finally have its name on display. The poles began to appear, in some instances in the most seemingly inappropriate, ludicrous, places, adorned with an oblong aluminium plate heralding for all to see the official name of the road in which they stand. Presumably in order to save costs the name plate was made of the thinnest aluminium sheet possible. It was attached to a small part of the circumference of the circular pole by two small screws: not the most secure method of fixing a flat surface to a curved one.

It was not long before the name plates in both our and the adjoining road became misshapen, bent in half, and then completely absent. This was either as a result of the strong winds; which could be seen to be violently shaking the thin plates; or drunken vandals, or both, tearing the plate off the pole; what a surprise! A scenario duplicated in many locations in Orihuela Costa. In two cases that I know of the pole has gone as well.

At the end of June 2012 I sent an email to two separate recipients, with a copy of the photograph at the top of the page attached, in the Town Hall offices requesting a replacement name plate. I wrote: 'Could you please make a request on my behalf for a replacement for the missing street name sign for 'Calle Ontario'. The blue pole is lonely on its own! '.

I received a reply informing me that in order for the Council to action my request I had to travel to the Town Hall to complete an official form, in person. As I was preparing for the start of our two month trip to the United Kingdom, I was not inclined to waste my time, and the expense of petrol for the car, to visit the offices in Orihuela Costa to complete, what I consider, an unnecessary duplicate request of my email. I thought a replacement sign would be of benefit to my neighbours, visitors, the community, delivery companies and helpful to the Council.

Calle Baikal

Several months on and still our blue pole is standing there without a purpose. So I've decided to see if the Orihuela Town Council will react again to a posting on my weblog.

If so, Sr. Alcaldesa, Mr Mayor, I have a question and a suggestion for you. Can the Council replace our missing street name sign? As the Urban Cleaning Services household refuse collection lorries travel throughout the area on a daily basis they would be an excellent source of information about the location of other missing signs and dis-functional poles.

[I wonder if any of the readers of this weblog living in Orihuela Costa know of any more examples and will send the location as a comment.]

By the by.

On the day that the two Council employees came and installed one of the signs for our road, we (my wife and I) were sitting in our lounge drinking our morning coffee when we suddenly heard the sound of drilling directly in front of our house. Opening the front door we could see the workers starting to drill a hole in the path directly in-line with our garden entrance gate. On enquiring we discovered that this was being drilled for the installation of one of the street-name poles. We pointed out to them that to site it there would seem a little inconsiderate as it made entry to our house through the gate a little inconvenient. It was pointed out to us that that was where their instructions indicated the sign must be. We eventually managed to get the 'Jobsworths' to agree to move it, all be it less than one half of a metre northwards further along the pavement; not directly in front of anyone's gateway.

How to bully your neighbours

This extract from the blog article by Ann Nicholas under the pseudonym of 'Majorcan Pearls', is it true of the Spanish mentality?

"There’s a very good game in Spain known as denunciación, literally denunciation, which whole communities enjoy. No one knows for sure of its origins but it’s likely to hark back to the days of the Spanish Inquisition and was enthusiastically revived in the thirties by General Franco during the Spanish Civil War.

Want to settle an old score? Jealous of another’s prosperity? Then look no further than the town hall or police station for vengeance. By filling out a denunciation form, in effect seeking public condemnation of an individual, it is easy to set the wheels in motion to reek revenge on just about anyone who causes irritation. And don’t be fooled into thinking that nearest and dearest are exempt. Recently a local tiler told me that he’d just denounced his brother for constructing a small outhouse in his garden without first gaining a building licence. When I questioned his motives, he admitted it was to get even with his brother for a past misdemeanour.

Not surprisingly, the act of public condemnation is most widely used against neighbours for intimidation purposes. If music is played too often, a dog’s bark is too loud, a garden hedge too high, an outhouse or garage built or extended without permission, only one word is necessary to strike terror in a neighbour’s heart: Denunciación.

Once the complaint has been filed, the accused will be contacted by a council official who will arrange a visit to the offending premises. Depending on the gravity of the ‘crime’, a heavy fine will be issued or worse, a demolition order for any illegal construction. An animal can also be condemned to death for offences such as mauling a neighbour’s sheep, a regular occurrence in the rural zones."

The full article can be read here: How to bully your neighbours – Telegraph Blogs.

It does not seem that the UK Expat community has taken up this game whole heartedly yet, although some are learning. More often or not their first dipping of their toes in the pool are against the Ayuntamiento (Town Hall)in respect of a failure of public services. Next they will try against the neighbour with the noisy dog. Where next after that?