Shorter queues

From the Costa Blanca News
The government will open two new foreigners’ offices to cut residence application queues and waiting times in Alicante province.

Government sub-delegate Etelvina Andreu announced on Friday the opening of offices in Calpe and Rojales to take pressure off the Alicante office in a province with 320,000 foreign residents. The first office will be in Calpe giving service to foreign residents in the Marina Alta and Marina Baixa from the first months of next year, and the Rojales office will open in the second half of 2007.

Between 2003 and 2006 the Alicante foreigners’ office was swamped with 70,000 cases outstanding. Now the number of pending cases is down to 9,900 and the average waiting time is down to a month and 10 days compared to waits of more than a year before.

The Alicante province foreigners’ department receives between 8,000 and 8,500 applications a month.

My comment
For those who have yet to apply for residency and for those whose residency is due for renewal this is good news. We waited over a year to have our residency application completed. We were not looking forward to a repeat of this in 2010 when our cards are due for renewal.