Elche seems to be closer to seeing a historic claim resolved and, moreover, mandatory by law for five years now. The accessibility of municipal buildings. The City Council is going to make another attempt, after problems with the previous contract, to undertake works in seven social centers with the aim that people with reduced mobility can make use of them and do not encounter architectural barriers. According to the mayor of the area, Mariano Valera, these are the last municipal buildings that have yet to catch up on accessibility by eliminating small architectural barriers.
The social centers San Antón, Altabix-Universidad, Los Palmerales, Poeta Miguel Hernández, Victoria Kent, Valverde and the house in the orchard of Montenegro, where the Parkinson’s disease association is based, are the buildings that will finally benefit from these adaptation works.
December 4, 2017 was the deadline given to municipalities for public buildings to be accessible. This is stated in the Law on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, however, this obligation is still resisting many local administrations.
In the case of Elche, the City Council began in 2018, in the past mandate, interventions in three public buildings, the Department of Social Welfare (15,000 euros) and in the social centers of the Polivalente de Carrús (27,000 euros) and El Raval ( €16,500). That year the previous mayor of Social Welfare, Tere Maciá, announced that with 350,000 euros they would start improvements for the accessibility of social centers and for actions in the creation of an accessible tourist itinerary in the downtown area. With this money, it was planned to act in the social centers of San Antón, Poeta Miguel Hernández, Palmerales, Altabix Universidad and Altabix, some dependencies where these works never arrived, since they are the same as the government team, the same one from the last mandate , is bidding now.
The current councilor responsible for Social Services justifies that since he arrived at the department in 2019 he has tried to speed up these works “as much as possible” so that the social centers could be up to date.
With this, at the moment the government team is bidding for more than 187,000 euros for works on buildings intended for municipal activities such as social care, socio-cultural, recreational and library activities.
According to the specifications, in most of these centers the sanitary devices and accessories suitable for it will be installed. In addition, mechanisms will be installed to provide these spaces with a call for help system that allows the user to know that their call has been received or that it was perceptible by means of acoustic and luminous signaling in a control center or in a place of frequent passage. . In order to facilitate access and independent, non-discriminatory and safe use of the buildings, signaling elements will be inserted at the entrances to the accessible building, in the accessible routes and in the accessible toilets.
In the Social Center of San Antón there will be a space for the reception where the counter will also be of two heights.
The accesses to the buildings and the interior doors will be replaced by others that allow easy access and in the buildings that present difficulties to access between floors or on the same floor, lifts and ramps will be installed.
Regarding the exteriors, in the San Antón Social Center the exit sidewalk to the garden is reformed, and in the Poeta Miguel Hernández Social Center the access to the building is reformed, in both cases it will be decided to create ramps to generate spaces accessible to all the users. In the case of the orchard building in Montenegro, where the Parkinson’s association has its headquarters and carries out therapeutic activities, the work will consist of installing an elevator. At Christmas 2016-2017, before moving to its current headquarters in the orchard of Montenegro, granted by the Consistory, the Parkinson’s Association asked for a much-needed elevator. We must not forget that elderly people come here, with walkers and wheelchairs and that in some cases climbing stairs means a world for them. Right now there are about thirty users.
The pending subject of the establishments
Mariano Valera admits that games must be generated so that businesses are adapted
That the city complies with universal accessibility and that buildings, not only municipal, but also private, lack architectural and sensory barriers is proving to be a challenge for the City Council. The mayor of Social Services, Mariano Valera, defends that “the work is constant” in the municipal disability council to solve the accessibility problems that are detected in the city. However, the councilor responsible for this department acknowledges that it is a “pending issue” that businesses and hospitality establishments comply with accessible standards. “We have to generate items for businesses to adapt accessibility,” says Valera, who also sees the need to involve other administrations such as the regional government to achieve this goal and meet the demand of associations.
The City Council has a disability office and is currently in charge of regulating parking cards for vehicles with reserved spaces and fords, as well as leisure programming for these groups or monitoring the city’s sidewalks so that slopes have zero degrees of incline as long as it is easier for wheelchair users.
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Eddie is an Australian news reporter with over 9 years in the industry and has published on Forbes and tech crunch.