San Javier to Murcia now has a toll free motorway which goes through Sucina and Zeneta.The regional president was due to open it last week.The road is also linked with the motorway to Yecla.

The last five kilometres were still being completed due to building work on the Madrid to Cartagena railway.This road it is said will save at least 30 minutes on the drive from the  Mar Menor to Murcia and it is expected to take traffic from the busy C-3319 from Murcia to San Javier.

A 30 kilometre cycleway has also been built along the motorway which crosses several bird protection areas near Sierra Escalona,Sierra Altaona and Monte El Valle,which are included in the European natural park network Natura 2000.

A bird information centre has been built at El Valle close to the motorway and it can be reached on a bicycle.Residents and visitors are being encouraged to use this cycle route.The regional government has invested 111 million euros in the new infrastructure.

Around 5000 Alicante people have benefited from the Alicante food bank foundation over Christmas.More than 30 tonnes of food will be handed out to needy people.The food is given to a variety of charities including Caritas and other non-governmental organisations that deal with people in need.This 30 tonnes will be just enough to see people through the Christmas period.

The Foodbank Foundation receives donations from all of the major supermarkets, both national and European.It gets four supplies a year which it then distributes to other charities.

This year there is an additional delivery of about 6000 kilos consisting of milk,oil,lentils,rice,pasta and other goods from Alicante’s commercial sector.Another batch of food came from Caja Mediterraneo which handed out 24,000 kilos of basic food to about 4000 people.Whilst the economic situation continues in this way and people continue to lose their jobs then this type of help is essential.

In January of last year a 64 year old Murcia man stabbed his wife to death and then took her body to the Murcia National Police station.He has now been given a 17 year long prison sentence.He was found guilty of murder last week.He has also been ordered to pay 150,000 euros in compensation to his three children.

It seems that he killed his wife because she had refused to live with him again.Psychiatrists say that he was not suffering from any mental disorder.The killing happened so quickly the wife had no time to defend herself.The killer had been on painkillers for many years but they say that he knew exactly what he was doing when he killed his wife.

Plan E is going to pay for Javea council to overhaul its water mains.Last summer parts of the town were suffering water cuts which caused everyone a great deal of annoyance,as they often lasted for days.People were having to fill water containers from water cisterns which the council provided.

The second round of the Plan E finance will amount to 3.3 million euros and the town council will spend 500,000 on this water mains work.The town does have a desalination plant which provides the town with more than enough drinking water.However parts of the water mains system are well over 30 years old.They are in need of an upgrade.

Opposition councillors are seeing the use of state money to complete work on a private company system,as not acceptable.They agree that the work needs doing but that it should not be done with public money.They feel that Amjasa,the water company should be upgrading the infrastructure.In the vote on the ways in which the Plan E money ought to be used the PSPV and Nueva Javea abstained.

A socialist councillor in Villajoyosa has gone public over her views regarding the public car park at the Villajoyosa hospital.It appears that the Mayor made a statement last June that he would ensure that a car park was made provisionally until they could get a permanent one constructed.

This provisional car park would be enough for 200 cars.He made this announcement after the private company that had been contracted to build the structure,pulled out.As there are 800 employees working at the Vega Baja hospital then 200 parking spaces don’t meet the need of the hospital.

There have been talks with Valencia about the situation and permission has been sought to get the car park built but Valencia has said that talks are still ongoing with a private company.The socialist councillor thinks that this will eventually happen.Her concern continues to be the fact that patients and visitors have to park over a kilometre away when they attend for appointments.