BACK IN 2019, the municipality of Estepona on the Costa del Sol made the headlines for all the wrong reasons, when a metal slide installed by the city had to be closed down the day after it opened due to safety concerns.
The bizarre plan from the council was to provide a way for locals to move from a higher street to a lower one in record time, but the ‘biggest urban slide in Spain’ lasted just 24 hours due to injuries such as bruises and burns suffered by those who were brave enough to try it.
The incident has not, however, put the local council off the idea of these adult slides. On Friday, the municipality opened its new council building, the fourth and fifth floors of which are joined by, you guessed it, another metal slide.
The two floors will be used by municipal workers, according to online daily El Diario, and it is they who will potentially be the users of this new installation.
Videos and photos have been circulating of the new slide, which is made of metal like the last one but in this instance is closed rather than being semicircular.
‘The city and its residents have more important needs than this one to cover with public money,’ complained Emma Molina, spokesperson from the opposition Socialist Party (PSOE), adding that the Popular Party mayor is ‘turning Estepona into some kind of joke’.
One more thing that the two slides have in common is the timing of their inauguration: in 2019 the slide was launched just ahead of local elections; the next polls are due in May of this year.
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