A bridge too far

ALMERIA CITY’S plans to demolish the bridge connecting La Chanca-Pescaderia and Plaza de Pavia are meeting bitter opposition.
The Salvemos el Puente (Save the Bridge) platform, which has so far succeeded in halting demolition of the bridge, wants the support of all candidates in the approaching elections.
The collective asked them to guarantee the movement of people and vehicles between both neighbourhoods.
It also called for urgent action so that municipally-owned land beneath the bridge can be put to good use.
For years this has been used as a rubbish dump, the platform complained.
“Saving the bridge isn’t a whim,” said Julia Rojas, President of the Plaza de Pavia business- owners’ association.
“Fighting mayors, councillors and the other people we depend on to make changes in the neighbourhood isn’t my favourite sport,” she admitted.
Although she does not live in the neighbourhood – a fact of which opponents often remind her – she has a pharmacy in Plaza de Pavia, as her mother did before her.
“People know where I live now but I was born in Plaza de Pavia, above my mother’s pharmacy.
My daily life is in the Plaza with ordinary, honest people with all their problems and funny ways and all their merits, too.
“We’re not defending a bridge, we’re defending our identity.
We are defending what we are and where we come from because we are proud of it and our history,” Julia concluded.