Disappointment in Junta budget 

HUERCAL-OVERA council has expressed disappointment in the regional government’s draft Budget for 2020, claiming it does not include necessary investments for the municipality. 
According to the local authority, the Andalucia administration’s budget due for approval in December features the new courts “but forgets commitments already made by the Junta, such as the case of the new school.” 
The council maintains the 2018 budget had an entry of €3.8 million for the construction of the school in the Education regional ministry’s plan to remove prefabricated classrooms, and that all that was required was for the local authority to make a plot available to put the project out to tender. 
“Since July we have been waiting for the government delegate to sign a document to make effective the return by the council of 7,000sqm at the fairground to educational use… on which the new school will be located, and with which 10 prefabricated classrooms at the CEIP San Jose de Calasanz will be eliminated, ending overcrowding at the centre”, maintained Huercal-Overa Mayor Francisca Lourdes Fernandez. 
The Mayor insisted the plot is the only one which “brings together all the technical and legal requirements for executing the investment”, adding, “it is incomprehensible that having the land available and with the entry approved since 2018, Huercal-Overa is left without such a necessary new school.” 
A local authority statement also said the mayor informed the Junta’s Almeria delegate Maribel Sanchez at a meeting in September of the main investments she believed Huercal-Overa required, which aside from the school were a new health centre and new purification plants. 
The Mayor expressed the opinion that a change of government at regional level should not have affected the investment plans, commenting, “priorities have to be above political colour.”