Coalición Canaria (CC) Tías has denounced the "total disconnection from reality" of the mayor, José Juan Cruz, after he announced the reopening, following an investment of half a million euros, of the Matagorda playground - an eminently tourist area - while numerous playgrounds located in the towns and places where the municipality's families reside present a "lamentable state of neglect".
The municipal spokesperson for the Canarian nationalist party, Amado Vizcaíno, regrets that the socialist governing group "boasts about quadrupling the surface area of a park where few residents live and in an area that the Modernization Plan maintains as touristy, while those in the rest of the towns in the municipality and Tías casco are forgotten, broken, and dirty, and are clearly not a priority for this mayor".
Tables and chairs instead of swings
In this regard, Vizcaíno states to the mayor that between the years 2020 and 2021 "the playground located next to the old El Mirador terrace-bar disappeared, despite the warnings made by Coalición Canaria". “That space ended up being occupied by tables and chairs from the concessionaire of a municipal property, where there used to be swings for the children”.
Likewise, Vizcaíno considers that José Juan Cruz "takes us doubly for fools since recently among the participatory budget proposals there was one to build a new playground in the area of the Atlántico center, justifying the need by there being none within 4 kilometers of coastline when he is precisely the one to blame for there not being one, proposing an allocation of 150,000 euros for its creation when now he tells us that the City Council has spent more than half a million on the expansion of the Matagorda park".
Total abandonment of playgrounds
Amado Vizcaíno also criticizes that “while the mayor boasts of new parks, he keeps completely abandoned, deteriorated, and very dirty the rest of the network of children's parks and even boasts of shade when what has been installed for that purpose provides neither shade nor shelter”.
“A clear example of our complaint is the playground on Terrero street, completely abandoned, with the ground destroyed and swings with pointed screws that are very dangerous. Such is the neglect that to this day it still has the sign with recommendations for use during COVID installed,” he adds.
Proposal of Coalición Canaria
From Coalición Canaria Tías, the need to promote a comprehensive plan for the renovation and maintenance of all the municipality's playgrounds with a maintenance and cleaning contract for them is insisted upon.
“Every town should have dignified, safe, and well-maintained public spaces for its children. Our idea has always been clear: to prioritize residents over tourists, but without forgetting them, obviously, because it is our main, if not only, industry. That is to say, fix things thinking about the local people, since the tourist also benefits from everything being fixed,” defends Amado Vizcaíno.
