12th Edition of Pilar Painting Contest

In this twelfth edition,the prizes went to the work of Alfredo López Rodríguez who received 2,000 euros and first prize,Pedro José Sánchez Marín with 1,200 euros and second prize,Paco Rojas García third prize and 800 euros; followed by Rafael Terrés Martínez and María José Muñoz Arias who received 400 and 300 euros respectively.

The Councilor for Culture,Darío Quesada,thanked Caja Rural Central for sponsoring the prizes,and stating that " we have had having had more than twenty entries from Catalonia, Valencia,Murcia and Andalusia with paintings that represent the splendours of our people”.

The jury was made up of the councillor himself,as well as the Mayor,Laureano Pérez,representative of the Caja Rural Central,plus a number of drawing teachers and painters.

The thirteenth edition will be held on Saturday,July 6 next year.

Spiralling House Prices

I was very interested to read the seemingly bitter article in last week's Leader by Tony Mayes.

Tony appears to blame Conservative Party greed and buy to let landlords for lack of sufficient housing and spiralling house prices and rents.

Being involved in the house building industry, I largely disagree with tony. In fact, many landlords are now selling their properties in the UK because of spiralling mortgage interest rates squeezing any profit on letting.

In my opinion, the reason behind high rents and house purchase costs is simply a rapidly increasing UK population creating demand inflation. In the past year, there was a 620,00 nett increase in UK population mainly due to immigration from Asia and Africa. This level of immigration has steadily risen over recent years, resulting in the equivalent of a new Birmingham being required every two years in housing and associated infrastructure requirements. This clearly is unsustainable in the UK and an impossibility for the construction industry.

In consequence of this seemingly endless population growth due to immigration, more and more people will find it impossible to obtain a home of their own and homelessness will continue to increase. The entire situation in the UK is quite disastrous.

Frank Emm by email

Appreciation For Ximo Puig From Orihuela Cathedral

The President of the Generalitat, Ximo Puig, has received a number of gifts from the dean of the Orihuela Cathedral, JosÈ Antonio Gea, in appreciation for the financial support pro-

Tony Mayes responds.....

"I cannot agree more with Frank Emm, immigration into the UK has been far too high, but I did not want to focus on that because it could then be conceived as a racist rant. But which party has been in power for the past 13 years? Tories could and should have put the brake on, but have been fast asleep on the job...and enjoying the huge rise in property prices."

E Scooter Mayhem

I read, with interest, the conflicting response to my previous letter. I would question one particular part of the response to my points which is: How can the authorities allow and even condone youngsters under the age of 16 to go riding on the roads on e scooters? The law clearly states riders are to be 16 years old or over?

I live close to the school by the Banana Tree and it is quite normal at the end of school sessions, to see youngsters well under 16 years old charging out into the road with no consideration to those pupils that are walking and without checking that it is safe to do so. Obviously the sellers and or hirers of these vehicles are only interested in making a profit, regardless of the problems they are inflicting on everybody else

Barry Weston by email

vided by the Generalitat toward the restoration of one of Orihuelaís most valuable treasures, the Cathedral organ.

The Dean presented the President with the reproduction of the historic coat of arms of Pere IVel CerimoniÛs and the symbol of the Oriolan seo, as well as a miniature replica of one of the pipes of the baroque organ.

The organ was built by Nicol·s Salanova and MartÌn Userralde in 1733.