The British Consulate team from Alicante visited the Orihuela Costa last night for an open evening aimed at giving British residents on the coast the most up to date information on Consular services, pensions, healthcare and benefits.The team, headed by British Consul, Paul Rodwell, was welcomed to the venue, Orihuela Costa Town Hall, by the PP Councillor for Personnel and Administration, David Costa and the Councillor for the Coast, Jose Antonio Aniorte as well as the Foreign Residents Liaison Officer, Stefan Pokroppa. David Costa also welcomed, in English, more than 100 coastal residents and representatives of the Royal British Legion, Age Concern, PUMA 22 and the Help at Home charity to the event.There are more than one million British citizens residing within the Iberian Consular Network and more than 14 million Britons visit the countries of the network, which include Spain, Portugal, recently added Italy and the principality of Andorra, every year. It is the busiest British Consular network in the world and in the Valencia community there are three honorary consuls in Valencia City, Denia and Murcia City as well as the main consulate, which is located in Alicante City centre and is staffed by a team of nine.

The Alicante Consulate is also home to the Department of Works and Pensions team, which is headed by Martyn Standing. He and his assistant, Laura Leeman, were also at last night’s open evening.There are 166,880 British people on the ‘padron’ in the Alicante Consulate’s area of responsibility and 17,672 of them live within the Orihuela municipality. During his introduction, David Costa made a point of reiterating that the British residents on the coast are very important to the PP government team and told them that they can contact the Town Hall in Orihuela Costa for anything at all. With the introduction of native Brit, Louise Clarke, at the Orihuela Costa Town Hall as its Press Officer, it is hoped that residents of the coast will now feel that they can come to the Town Hall with any issues and feel comfortable that they will be fully understood and therefore be able to efficiently communicate their requests.During 2010 the British Consulate in Alicante issued 1400 emergency passports, helped and advised 500 bereaved families, visited 150 vulnerable people in hospital and supported 600 British detainees in prison, advising them of their rights. The Consul explained at the meeting that there are several things that are not within the Consulate’s remit, including not getting involved in private disputes. They also cannot issue 10 year passports, give cash or get you better healthcare treatment and they most certainly cannot get you out of jail!The key message from the meeting was that if in doubt about anything relating to your life here in Spain, the Consulate’s website www.ukinspain.fco.gov.uk has a wealth of information that can help you. The Consul also advised residents to visit the Alicante Diputation’s European Residents Department website, which is translated into English, at www.residenteseuropeos.com as there is also lots of valuable and relevant information on there.