The Socialist Group in the Diputación de Málaga once again demanded at last Thursday’s council meeting the reopening of Manilva’s fire station, which has been closed for months. The provincial deputy Antonio Navarro (PSOE) asked the governing team for explanations about the real possibilities of reactivating this service and described the answers received as “insufficient” and “contradictory”.
For the provincial governing team, the second vice-president of the Diputación, Manuel Marmolejo (PP), reiterated that the closure was due to “technical reasons” and to the fact that Manilva Town Hall “has not made any valid land available” to relocate the station. According to Marmolejo, this situation was known to the mayor, Mario Jiménez, and councillor Juan Carlos Morejón. Marmolejo said «what we have been offered does not at all meet what the Consorcio requires».
The PSOE, for its part, rejects these arguments and accuses the Partido Popular of “creating doubt” around the process. The Socialists maintain that during the term of the previous mayor, José Manuel Fernández (PP), the investment needed to maintain the service was not guaranteed, and they state that this management contributed to the closure of the station, which the Consorcio de Bomberos justified by “technical deficiencies” and access problems for carrying out drills.
In its statement, the PSOE raises several questions addressed to both the Town Hall and the Diputación: which specific plots of land have been offered for relocating the service, why a proposal considered valid by the provincial institution has still not been formalised, and why, according to the Socialists, the former mayor Fernández “has not taken any steps” to promote the reopening of the station from his post in the Mancomunidad.
The Socialists insist that, in their view, the people of Manilva remain “unprotected” for as long as the service stays closed, and they accuse the PP of offering “excuses” instead of solutions. They also link the closure to the vote of no confidence that removed the PP from the municipal government in the last term, an interpretation the Partido Popular has denied on other occasions.
The PSOE of Málaga and the PSOE of Manilva state that they will continue to demand “transparency and responsibility” on this matter. They also announced that, if they regain the mayor’s office at the next municipal elections, they will make the necessary land available to the Diputación “immediately” to build a new station. They also expressed their wish that the Diputación might pass into Socialist hands in order to “speed up” the process.
Meanwhile, the political debate remains open and the future of the fire station still has no specific reopening date. The service is considered by the political groups to be essential for the safety of the municipality and continues to be a source of confrontation between the PSOE and the PP at both municipal and provincial level.
