The works that the Arrecife City Council will carry out within the framework of the Improvement Plan for the center of the island's capital will be done in finished sections in order to alter the commercial activity of the area as little as possible, as well as the traffic on the streets affected by the project. This was explained yesterday by the Councilor for Public Works of the City Council, Luis Morales, and the mayor of the municipality, María Isabel Déniz, in the meeting they held with the representatives of the Federation of Small and Medium Enterprises (Felapyme), which brings together the business owners of the old town of the city, formed in the Zona Centro de Arrecife business association.
As Luis Morales explained in statements to LA VOZ, "we have tried to make a schedule of the works so that they bother as little as possible".
The project will begin, according to the Councilor for Public Works, at the end of the Carnivals, approximately on March 2. These works, included in the Tourist Infrastructure Plan, include improvements to sidewalks, pavement and public lighting, among others. Together with the Canary Islands Government and the State, the City Council will have an investment of about 700,000 euros for this conditioning plan.
For his part, the president of Felapyme, Alfredo Villalba, expressed the satisfaction of the business owners with the attitude adopted by the City Council in this regard. "We think it is correct that every time this type of work is going to be done, it should be made known to the merchants, although we are surprised that the mayor has come to explain the project to us, when she does not attend to us in relation to other matters, such as the problems of the rainwater drainage system".
The Felapyme strike
On the other hand, the members of Felapyme have announced a business strike for this Friday in protest of the lack of works on the rainwater drainage system, which will result in a five-minute strike of businesses and other commercial activities in the city.
In this sense, Luis Morales blames the central government for not doing its homework so that the City Council has 17 million euros for such works and argues that the capital Corporation has always listened to the business owners, citing as an example the delay of this conditioning, precisely because the merchants were not interested in having works during the past Christmas holidays.
