The number 4 of the list of compromis for Xàbia is presented after years of social and cultural militancy. Arnau Castell Alemany tells us about his concerns and the measures he considers most important to bring to the Town Hall of Xàbia.
Which are the reasons why you are into local politics?
It is true this is the first time I’m part of an electoral list, but I think politics goes further: I want to give back to my hometown everything it gave me, being involved in it and having will. In Xàbia we do this in many places: cultural and sportive spaces, in my vocation of teaching or in the knowledge and defence of our natural environment. In this sense I feel I’ve been doing politics always and presenting myself at Compromís primaries is just a little step forward, probably a logical consequence of all my commintments in others facets of life. I assume this challenge being proud of it.
How do you think you could contribut to Compromís project?
My political point of view comes from my personal experiences. One of them is related to the idea of having two hometowns: I got deep family roots in Alpatró, Vall de Gallinera, and I know pretty good how dramatic is depopulation in small villages since before it went trendy on television. In La Marina Alta, far from being a dreaming destination that some would like it to be, we have lost population in the last decade, and we do not have only small villages about to disappear, also we are getting more and more aged because we oblige our young people to go away from here, either to Spanish bigger cities either abroad, if they want to get a decent life.
Even myself I had to ho to UK and nowadays I’m teaching in Catalonia. I belive I can add a point of view based on a generation which no one has given us anything and what we demand, at least, the same opportunities our parents had: access to a home, a decent workplace… I want to live in Xàbia again and now it’s too complicated. We can’t have a government whose aims are asphalting streets and doing concerts for tourists while our people go away anymore. We have to be able to think about future, planning the present and thinking about the coming generations.
Which are your priorities?
I believe in that famous phrase: think globally and behave locally, and I do believe climate change is right now the biggest problem we have to face, I’m convinced. This ecological revolution, that we have to carry necessarily, is a chance to live better and build up a future for Xàbia. We need a strategy for a green Xàbia
We must transform our mobility to a sustainable town, making decrease cars usage. We need more bus lanes, bike lanes, charging points for electric vehicles and a public system of electric bikes to rent, like Madrid or Barcelona
We must reconsider our town, coming back to the compact Mediterranean town: houses and buildings, not so large, with shops on the ground floor, squares and public spaces for people and not for cars. No real-state promotion, nor hundreds of villas for few people in green areas anymore. Children, the future, need to be grown in a habitable town.
We must reconsider natural and agrarian areas as a part of our town too: we have to protect paths, routes and ways and rethink it as a sort of network next to our bike lane. Also we need some continuous transition in form of accessible parks in the city and the protected areas: next to the sea, Gorgos river, Montgó, Tossal Gros, Pla, and so on… we need to know our territory and making it accessible is the best way to protect it.
We must complete an integral water cicle making possible treatment plant waters EPSART be up to watering and using water for agrarian invigoration to the Pla and Valls. Proximity farming and industrial agrotransformation are the future in a world which values a lot sustainable nutrition.
We need an ambitious plan of renewable energies, starting with municipal buildings and particularly with desalination plant and treatment plant. Working with towns for all around the region, Generalitat, and the central government we have to start thinking about a network of public companies of green energy, like the one exists already in Barcelona. Let’s give to our neighbours clean and cheaper energy, against the electrics companies oligopoly and the IBEX.
We need to rethink how we deal with waste collection. We need a public deal 100% and a it has to be collected door by door, at least in the urban centre, such as compromís government of Orba does, recycling 4 times more. Let’s get rid of macro rubbish dumps.
We do need public housing for youth and vulnerable people, and an important part of it needs to be done by harnessing. We’ve got, specially in the city centre, lots of old unused houses. The harnessing and energy efficiency are kay aspects, that’s why we need a department of European to get EU sources such as Altea does.
A last question, what do you ask your neighbours for?
I would like them to trust us, a vote of confidence. We have stepped forward because we believed Xàbia needed a courageous government, without resignation, a government which makes social budgets every year and news proposals; a government which finishes all those new projects not ended – the pool, the auditorium, the catarroges industrial state- and a government which can think in some new. We need a Botànic agreement: courageous, ecologist, and talkative, without impositions, nor absolute majorities. It is on your hands to fill the ballot boxes up with smiles next Sunday.
