These actions are part of the Respect Plan, a municipal initiative aimed at improving the general condition of the city and strengthening the maintenance of public spaces. The Director General of Urban Quality, Basic Services, Accessible City, and Animal Welfare, Sebastián Gálvez, stated that this initiative is carried out periodically and integrated into the coordinated planning of municipal services.
Work began last week with the intensive cleaning of twenty streets in El Grau. This action has involved the extraordinary hiring of personnel to cover all tasks and will allow for more thorough work in the planned areas. The tasks not only focus on superficial cleaning but also include actions on urban furniture, graffiti removal, cleaning of containers, streetlights, and drains, as well as parks and gardens.
To carry out these actions, the city council has a total of 356 operators, who work for the various municipal contractors responsible for city maintenance. Of these, 120 are dedicated to street cleaning, 107 to cleaning public buildings, and the rest are distributed among services such as parks and gardens, road maintenance, sewerage, lighting, and pest control. Additionally, 161 vehicles and specialized machinery are available.
The budget allocated to these basic services exceeds 20 million euros annually, an investment that the city council considers key to ensuring the proper functioning and quality of the urban environment. The council also reminds that the coexistence ordinance has recently been modified to toughen penalties for uncivil behavior, emphasizing the need to preserve public spaces.
“"If the government now has to launch intensive cleaning, reinforce actions, and announce extraordinary plans again, it is because ordinary cleaning and daily maintenance have not worked as they should."
From the opposition, a spokesperson for the Popular Municipal Group has positively assessed any action that improves the image of Gandia's neighborhoods but warned that the need for these extraordinary plans demonstrates that ordinary cleaning has not been effective. They recalled having previously denounced this situation, demanding "fewer plans and presentations and more street cleaning."
The popular spokesperson insisted that "this announcement does not refute my criticisms, but rather reinforces them," and added that "what is worrying is that the government acts again for campaign purposes and headlines, instead of ensuring constant and effective maintenance throughout the year." They concluded that, with over 20 million euros annually allocated to these services, residents have the right to demand real and sustainable results, as "a clean city is not built with punctual announcements, but with serious management, planning, and constancy."
