News in Brief for Alicante province’s Costa Blanca South area

Lighting up CREVILLENT switches on its Christmas lights on December 2, although the Crib will be inaugurated on December 8 as usual. Fiestas councillor Josep Candela emphasised that “adapting to circumstances” the town hall would save a daily 20 per cent on electricity bills by switching off earlier at night.  

Happy families PSOE party headquarters in Madrid once again postponed the primaries scheduled to select its candidate for Torrevieja mayor in next May’s elections.  No alternative date has been set and insiders attribute the delay to bad feeling between the party’s municipal spokesman, Andres Navarro, and Organisation secretary Andres Anton.

Class war  ALICANTE province’s nine Official Language Schools (EOIs), which have still 4,058 in-person vacancies for English and 327 for Valenciano, have extended the enrolment date until December 15. In contrast, its website crashed last summer and all the places for online EOI classes were snapped up within three minutes.  

Windy city HIGH winds in the early afternoon on November 19 wrenched the crown and fronds from a palm tree in Orihuela’s Gabriel Miro park, although the trunk remained intact.  No-one was injured in the incident but the Policia Local cordoned off the area while firefighters removed the fallen branches.  

Court makeover THE Generalitat will spend €1.4 million on overhauling the air-conditioning and lighting on all floors at Torrevieja’s Palacio de Justicia complex of 12 courts and their offices.  The project includes improving energy-efficiency and installing solar panels on the roof of the building which was originally constructed in 1999.