Madrid comes across with €10 million for Vega Baja (Alicante) flood-prevention

THE central government’s Cabinet recently issued a Royal Decree approving €10 million in direct aid to prevent Vega Baja floods.

As well as 27 official Vega Baja municipalities, the grant will also cover Crevillent’s Realengo and San Felipe Neri districts which are geographically included in the area’s floodplain.

Acknowledging that the Vega Baja is one of the country’s most at-risk areas as regards flooding, the Environment Ministry specified that most of the grant, up to 50 per cent, should be assigned to protecting town centres, residential neighbourhoods, public buildings and infrastructure.

Seventy-three per cent of Vega Baja land – approximately 13,000 hectares – is given over to crop-growing and least 25 per cent of the €10 million is to be used to protect the Vega Baja’s agricultural sector, its installations and its irrigation network.

There will also be cash for the Vega Baja’s 118 livestock farms.

Approximately 10 per cent of the Madrid millions must be set aside for engaging technical personnel to contribute studies, reports and research to the Generalitat’s Vega Renhace regeneration plan introduced after the disastrous and damaging floods of September 2019.

Already in Madrid for the Cabinet announcement, Antonio Alonso director of the Plan Vega Renhace office in Orihuela, had a Moncloa meeting with Hector Izquierdo, Commissioner for the Recovery of La Palma, the island ravaged by the Cumbre Vieja volcano last autumn.

Both have agreed to exchange information on their respective plans for emerging from destructive natural disasters.

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