Alicante advances another credit modification with PP and Vox amid left-wing reproaches

Alicante has moved forward this Friday with a new credit modification approved in the Finance Committee with the votes of PP and Vox, and the rejection of left-wing groups. The agreement allows for the advancement of several initiatives, such as the adaptation of the museum spaces of Casa Misericordia, the repair of Teresa Mas square, the acquisition of a boat for the Local Police, or the replacement of the Raval Roig elevator, initiatives included in the 2025 budget pact and many of them promoted by Vox.

Councillor Óscar Castillo celebrated these as "important steps in fulfilling the agreements reached with the Popular Party." The party warns that it is monitoring the execution level of the pact before starting the 2026 budget negotiations. Vox argues that these actions respond to "direct demands from residents in district boards" and appreciates the work of associations for conveying them accurately. Among the incorporated proposals are shades in the commercial streets of the centre, improvements in the sports courts of the North Zone, the redevelopment of Océano Street, and the repair of Teresa Mas square in Florida.

Castillo insisted that Vox acts as "a useful and constructive opposition, far from the destructive positions of the extreme left, which only seek to paralyse the city." The party announces it will continue working "with loyalty to the people of Alicante" and demanding the PP to fulfil the 2025 pact before addressing the 2026 municipal accounts.

The Socialist Municipal Group voted against the modification, considering it "another exercise of Barcala's accounting trickery, with Vox as a necessary accomplice," according to councillor Silvia Castell.

The councillor accused the government team of failing to fulfil its commitment to start the Tómbola pavilion works this year, for which 3 million euros had been allocated, and now redirecting those funds to the ABA6 reform, an action that—she recalls—"was already included in the 2024 budget." Castell argues that no progress has been made on either project and criticises the government's "total lack of credibility."

The councillor also pointed out that the municipal executive has been forced to re-budget the ABA6 project to avoid losing the 654,551 euros subsidy from the Diputación's Plan Planifica. In her opinion, Mayor Luis Barcala's "poor management" has led to more than 150 million euros remaining unexecuted in banks over seven and a half years, funds that "should have been invested in the neighbourhoods."

From Esquerra Unida, councillor Manolo Copé also expressed his rejection of the file and argues that the modification "does not respond to a real plan, but to the need to patch up failed projects like the Tómbola pavilion and the limitations of the Economic-Financial Plan derived from the PP's management."