Only half of Palma residents think that quality of life is high

PALMA
EIGHT out of every 10 Palma residents say they are very satisfied with their home but only half consider that the environmental situation is good or very good, the same percentage whose view is that the quality of life in the city is high.

This is the main result of the Poll conducted for the city council by Agenda Local 21, who questioned 1'348 people resident in the five administrative districts of the city.

During a press conference, the deputy mayor of the Environment department, Catalina Terrassa, and the head of Agenda Local 21 in Palma, Iñaki Miniño, said they were satisfied with the results of the poll.

They said that when questioned about how they saw the environmental quality of the city, citizens had differing opinions, but 58.2 percent said that they thought that the cleanliness of the city was satisfactory.

It must be added to this that the same citizens gave a higher number of points to the collection of rubbish, with 68 percent saying that this service is good or very good.

According to the poll, the quality of water is one of the things which merited a very low opinion, as 39 percent said that the tap water is bad, and 24 percent said it is very bad. Just 33 percent said they thought it was good.

This is evidence that the residents' perception of the tap water, day to day, is that it is not very good, in spite of the fact, according to Terrassa, that EMAYA (Palma's water and rubbish collection company) is rigorously applying the regional, national and European laws concerning the quality of tap water.

EMAYA, said Terrassa, has for a few years been working to improve this negative perception of tap water. On the other hand, the residents of Palma say that the water supply service is very good, as is the drainage service.

Keeping with the theme of water, sea water does not escape scrutiny by those questioned and, conscious of the improvements which are done every year in this matter, almost half said it was good.

Of those questioned, although they said that traffic flow and car park availability was bad, almost half of them said they were satisfied with the state of the roads and dual carriageways, and with the public transport service.

HAPPY
Terrassa said that with regard to social facilities, those questioned said that they were happy with the sporting, cultural and leisure facilities, lighting and health services. This last service had the approval of almost 70 percent of those questioned. The poll also shows that most people are happy with the parks and gardens in existence at the moment.

Finally, Terrassa highlighted that, in spite of the efforts made by Palma council to put more car parks in the city, and since June 2006 another 1'244 underground parking spaces and 1'477 street parking spaces had been constructed, the residents think that there are few places to park in the capital.

Using this poll as a base, Palma council are planning to develop different plans of action with the aim of making Palma more sustainable while respecting the natural and city environment.