This week two families who had rented two homes in Orriols have chosen to leave this neighborhood of the city of Valencia, tired of living and suffering insecure situations. This is not the first time this has happened, as young couples who purchased their home in the neighborhood a few years ago, taking advantage of the fact that the price per square meter was more attractive, also chose to look for another place to live.
“The good people leave, the older people who have no other choice stay, and a conflictive population arrives.” This is what Mari Carmen Tarín, spokesperson for Orriols en Lucha, explains to La Vanguardia, a neighborhood platform that on Wednesday concentrated on the toughest area of ??the neighborhood to demand that the continuing crime in the neighborhood be stopped. In October, a young man was stabbed to death after a fight and, just a week later, several were injured in another brawl. “There is a constant trickle of robberies, broken glass, people who have an easy time pulling out the knife,” says Tarín.
And, although after the events of October both the Government Delegation and the City Council received them and the police presence in the area increased – there was even a large operation that resulted in 7 arrests -, the neighbors did not hesitate on Wednesday to take to the streets to demand that the underlying problem be attacked. “After the crisis, many apartments remained in the hands of the banks and have now been occupied. There are good people, against whom we have nothing, but also others who live off crime and a knock-on effect is occurring that we have to stop “emphasizes the spokesperson for Orriols in struggle.
A day later, this Thursday, it was the residents of Malva-rosa who took to the streets to demand that their neighborhood no longer be a “drug market” and that they opt for a comprehensive plan for the pink houses because, as The motto of the cacerolada read, “Whoever rules, Malva defends itself.”
Almost at the same time, the neighborhood associations of Ciudad Jardín gathered to ask the Valencia City Council to “comply with the sentences” and declare the ZAS Zone (Acoustically Saturated Zone (ZAS) to guarantee the right to rest of the neighbors. The square del Cedro and Honduras have for years suffered from high levels of noise pollution due to the massive presence of entertainment venues that cause the accumulation of many young people drinking alcohol until the early hours of the morning.
Three demonstrations in two days that show that, after the truce of the first days of the new government, the residents demand that María José Catalá’s new team fulfill its promises and not forget its demands.
The PP and Vox – now partners in the cap i casal council – made security one of their battlehorses against the previous Executive of Compromís and PSPV. In fact, in the budgets for 2024, Catalá explained that the City Council has allocated 278.1 million euros to security, 25% of the total, with the intention of reaching a Local Police staff of 2,007 agents (100 more positions). .
The neighborhood protests had their echo chamber yesterday at City Hall. The socialist spokesperson in the council, Sandra Gómez, showed the group’s “absolute commitment” to the residents of Orriols, Malvarrosa and Ciudad Jardín in the face of the “contempt and punishment” to which the government of María José Catalá is subjecting them.
“The residents of Orriols, Malvarrosa and Ciudad Jardín are being forced to take to the streets to demand the attention of a PP and Vox city council, which systematically ignores their demands despite the fact that the problems of crime, noise and cleanliness are “They are multiplying in their neighborhoods,” he said.
Gómez, in this sense, advanced that the socialists will present amendments so that the Generalitat incorporates sufficient budgetary items to promote the provisions that the previous progressive government had planned in these neighborhoods.
For her part, the mayor defended that she perfectly understands the neighborhood demands after “8 years” without anyone listening to them and doing something. Catalá recalled that she has been in office for five months and that she does politics “not magic” although she did commit to working hand in hand with these neighborhood entities while she criticized the “hypocrisy” of the opposition.