From Friday, December 14 until yesterday afternoon, the residents of Planes del Rei were once again deprived of drinking water. According to Oscar Serrano, opposition city councillor (Unitat per Planes), the outage affected “the entire urbanisation”.
A situation ongoing for a year
“Since January 2, it’s been almost a year that we’ve been experiencing recurring water cuts without any solution being provided,” laments Oscar Serrano in the pages of Diari de Tarragona. He accuses the town hall of refusing to take charge of the wells and pumps supplying the urbanisation.
Residents of more than 400 plots have already mobilised several times in 2018 to demand a lasting solution.
A neglected urbanisation despite its demographic weight
For Oscar Serrano, the town hall is not fulfilling its commitments. “The mayor had signed a decree promising a return to normal. But nothing has been done,” he states.
He emphasises the importance of Planes del Rei in the municipality: “There are 1,000 people in winter, up to 2,500 in summer, with 428 plots. Pratdip, by comparison, only has 220 houses.”
And yet, he laments, “not a single euro has been invested here. We pay our taxes, but only the residents of Pratdip benefit from subsidies. It’s feudalism.”
In January, to protest the lack of water, the neighbours symbolically washed their laundry at the village public fountain.
The mayor mentions sabotage
The mayor of Pratdip, Joan Maria Rovira, claims that the water service was “restored as quickly as possible.” He says he notified Comaigua on Saturday and asserts that the water is now flowing again. However, he admits that “the tanks are not full, and since the system operates with pumps, a malfunction causes part of the network to shut down.”
He states that the town hall has invested €15,000 in the Planes del Rei network this year, and delivered 1.5 million litres of water in summer. But he insists that, in his view, “the urbanisation is private“, and that the costs must be borne by the homeowners.
Regarding the cause of the incidents, Rovira speaks of possible sabotage. He refers to “very strange” events and says he has contacted the Mossos d’Esquadra. It’s not the first time he’s suggested this: as early as January, he claimed that some breakdowns seemed deliberate.
Marc Camara – Diari de Tarragona
