News in Brief – Costa de Almeria

All lit up MORE than 300,000 low-consumption Led bulbs are illuminating Vicar this Christmas. As well as street decorations, the lightbulbs adorn a new tree in front of the town hall, a 60-metre multicolour tunnel requiring more than 45,000 lightbulbs, an outsized Christmas bauble, a Nativity Scene and a giant snowman. 

On watch NIJAR’S bicycle lane between the San Isidro and Campohermoso districts will be equipped with 72 CCTV cameras at the intersections with the principal roads in both neighbourhoods. By installing the surveillance cameras, the town hall hopes to monitor and regulate traffic while reducing hold-ups and their knock-on effects.

Well annoyed GERGAL and Alboloduy residents, whose domestic water comes from the same artesian well, are protesting at their “almost black” tap-water.  They are now calling on the provincial council, the Diputacion, to sink another well so they can have the good-quality water supply they are entitled to, they said.

Cold comfort IN mid-November when temperatures began to plummet outside Spain, prices paid for Almeria vegetables started to rise.  As Almeria’s greenhouses gradually reach peak production, exports to central and northern Europe are now fetching higher prices than in previous years, with a sustained demand for tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers.

Prison payout SPAIN’S prison authority, Instituciones Penitenciarias, was ordered to pay €200,000 compensation to a staff member at El Acebuche prison who was trapped by a sliding door, fracturing his sternum and suffering post-traumatic stress. Security measures like the door’s inaccessible mechanism should not endanger prison staff, the court ruled.