Cardona: “Xàbia needs change in its productive and economic model”

Wednesday 14th July 2021 – PRESS RELEASE with Mike Smith

Rosa Cardona, spokesperson for the Xàbia branch of the Partida Popular, has issued a statement after a magazine lists Xàbia as one of the municipalities with the highest house prices in Spain.

According to the magazine El Economista, Xàbia lies in seventh spot of the list of municipalities with the highest house prices, behind Benahavís, Pozuelo de Alarcón, Calvià, Marbella, San Roque and Sitges. In fact, it is the most expensive municipality in the Valencian Community.

Publications like this suggest that in Xàbia there is wealth, but the reality is quite different. Here we have the lowest per capita income. The current production system and the socioeconomic model is the closest thing to a monoculture of construction, tourism and services, which has placed us in a comfort zone from which we can’t leave, because there are no alternatives offered, nor the foundations to carry out a change.

We have wasted resources. We have a well trained and prepared local human potential that is leaving our town and is being welcomed in other municipalities where its growth and per capita income exceeds that of Xàbia.

Our productive and economic system is one step away from being finished. It is a cycle that needs change. It has happened before. Now the pandemic has shown us that we are very fragile and dependent on those with very high per capita income, and what sustains us today will soon be exhausted by the new general plan, by the inexistence of an industrialized and technological park, by the obstacles, restrictions and blocking of entrepreneurial initiatives. But what is being done to prevent economic stagnation in Xàbia? And why are our young people leaving: why is it not being undertaken or because they do not live here?

We have a problem and solving it doesn’t seem to be of much concern to the socialist municipal government. It has been governing for more than 10 years, but has not done anything to solve the housing problem, nor managed the social protection measures, losing an opportunity on a municipal plot, nor social rent, nor sheltered housing. How are our young people going to stay if they cannot buy the expensive homes in Xàbia?

If measures are not taken to plan alternatives to construction, tourism, the service sector, then this government is heading for disaster. There are sufficient reasons to initiate the change of the productive and economic model of Xàbia. The problem must be addressed, because looking the other way will not feed the families. There are people who want to undertake, and there are those who do not want to be dependent on aid from the State and for all Xàbia has sufficient resources.

Populares Xàbia proposes to start the process of changing the economic model. You have to be brave and start the path to create a strategic plan both in the short term (2022/2025), and in the long term, to seek the economic stability of families, keeping our trained young people, offering the chance to work, live and create wealth in Xàbia as an opportunity and the best decision of your life.

Measures must be taken, starting with accepting that the future general plan does not foresee enough endowment land to cover the needs of the residents, as well as eliminate the unmanageable ARIs in our municipality.

Measures must be taken to avoid the abandonment of the 8 million square metres of urban land that will be incorporated into the existing agricultural land, and for this it is necessary to start now with the promotion of the agricultural sector, local products and of course, without further ado investigation into the Integral Water Cycle is carried out in Xàbia.

An improvement and revitalization plan of the historic center must be urgently implemented to recover homes and businesses, and that’s what being sustainable is all about. As well as providing land for hotel use so that this activity is harmonized and integrated into our landscape heritage, and not letting more opportunities escape such as educational centres, sports schools, residences for the elderly, and all the positive that they would generate in Xàbia.

The development of an eco-efficient, technological and fully integreated industrial estate must be taken seriously as well as fight against the regional government so that it doesn’t reduce planned industrial land. More than anything, some day, a government will manage to implement it. That the granting of licenses is given speed and that business development with ecological and technological purposes be promoted, and of course that it be easier for existing companies to grow and stay in Xàbia.

You have to get Xàbia to expand the offer of professional training, which can be the headquarters of a university as well as a location for conferences; to have a museum dedicated to Sorolla; to promote the re-development of the Central Cinema as well as promoting sports and creating a sports and high-performance city.

And more than ever, measures are needed to consolidate tourism on which we depend so much, but also development a plan so that tourism doesn’t harm Xàbia and its residents whilst also carrying out a local plan of beaches and the regeneration of which have been lost.

These proposals are not a utopia of the Popular Party of Xàbia, they are necessary and real measures for the future of Xàbia, which from the opposition and after two years of legislature, we continue to propose to the Chulvi government, even though it does not listen.

Enough of not having a vision, of not planning an immediate future that supplies the economic model that is in decline, of not worrying about the best social policy that is employment, because at this rate, for those of us here, it is of little use for Xàbia to have the most expensive homes in Spain because we can’t buy them.