The Socialist group at Benidorm Town Hall has denounced that two 100 per cent electric buses, purchased by the council for 1.5 million euro at the beginning of 2023, remain parked without providing any service and gathering dust in a depot belonging to the company responsible for urban transport in Benidorm.
Socialist spokesperson Cristina Escoda has criticised this latest example of “neglect, lack of planning and dismal management” by the local government team led by Mayor Toni Pérez. She highlighted that the management incapacity of the Partido Popular keeps these state-of-the-art vehicles locked away, despite having received significant funding from the Ministry of Transport, when they should be helping to reduce polluting emissions in the municipality.
Escoda called out the cynicism and hypocrisy of the local government team, accusing Toni Pérez of delivering one message while doing the exact opposite. She stated that the PP continuously boasts about commitments to sustainable mobility, zero emissions, and the modernisation of urban transport to encourage citizens to give up combustion vehicles and improve their quality of life. However, she noted that the reality of their management is that they are completely unable to put into service two electric buses that have been registered since 2025.
The Socialists stressed that this case is not an isolated incident, but rather the usual way the PP administration manages public subsidies. The spokesperson recalled the recent example of the brown bins for selective organic waste collection, which remain unavailable on the streets of the city despite costing 1.5 million euro. She added that everything points to losing the 800,000 euro European subsidy for the bins, and expressed hope that the same will not happen with the funds received for the electric buses.
Finally, the PSOE has demanded that Mayor Toni Pérez stop posing for social media photos and get to work to resolve the problems keeping these electric buses parked, so that these vehicles paid for with millions of euro can finally be made available to the public in Benidorm.
