Dénia's residents' movement is seeking to recover momentum. The Federation of Residents' Associations in the city is going through an internal reorganisation process, according to its president, Salvador Cervera, in statements to Dénia FM. The aim is to expand its reach and bring in neighbourhoods that are not yet represented: "We are contacting all the residents' associations that are not yet part of the federation," he said.
A larger federation, Cervera suggests, would also have greater capacity to convey residents' demands to the council and to follow up on solutions.
Incivility, security and rubbish, the most repeated complaints
The concerns that reach the associations are repeated from one neighbourhood to another. Both Cervera and Eleuterio Martínez, secretary of the Montgó Residents' Association management committee, agreed that residents' most frequent complaints concern incivility, lack of security, poor cleanliness and problems with waste collection.
This last point has become especially important following incidents recorded during the summer. The federation is calling for a review of collection frequencies, the distribution of bins and the quality of the service.
"The mechanism lacks agility"
The relationship with the council is not confrontational, but impatient. Cervera summed it up as: "We are proved right on many fronts, but then the mechanism is slow". In his view, the council's operation lacks the agility to turn commitments into visible improvements.
The federation president insisted that many of the solutions do not require major investment. "It is not necessary to carry out large projects for a city to be comfortable," he argued. For Cervera, concrete and well-executed actions are enough to make the city a place where you can live, enjoy and get along.
Montgó demands pavements, asphalt and street lighting
If complaints across the city focus on coexistence and services, on Montgó the problem is mainly about infrastructure. Eleuterio Martínez denounced the poor state of the neighbourhood and focused on the lack of pavements: "If someone wants to go down the street they have to walk on the asphalt," he explained, because there are practically none.
Added to that lack, according to Martínez, are problems with the state of the streets and public lighting. The residents' representative demands greater municipal investment in the area and argues that his neighbours should receive services befitting their status as residents and taxpayers.
Good dialogue, but calling for faster action
Despite the criticism, both representatives valued positively the dialogue maintained in neighbourhood meetings and the attention received from the council. The complaint is not about being heard, but about timescales: they are calling for agreed solutions to be implemented more quickly.
Cervera closed his remarks with an appeal for greater municipal involvement and reinforced citizen participation through residents' associations: "Listen to us, but at the same time commit to improvements".
