Hi, moving to Torrevieja soon, does anyone know what the crime is like there? is it a troubled place? any info on it would be great thanks.

Where in Torrevieja? It is a big town and some areas are better than others. Where you see a lot of graphitti can be an indication that you are in a rough neighbourhood.

HI, its El CHAPARREL do you know that area???

You're surely not saying that you are moving to El Chaperral and know little or nothing about it??

Dont know a great deal about it no, ??????????

El Chapparal is a large, well established urbanisation, next door to the similar La Siesta and San Luis ones. It has less crime than the Torretas on the other side of the dual carriageway or some of the dodgier places in Torrevieja itself. It is by no means crime-free though, nowhere in greater Torrevieja is.

This forum is for the whole of expat Spain, you might get more local answers on more local forums, but I'm afraid some of them need a flak jacket.

Neighbourhood Watch is very active in the area, it has to be, and the local co-ordinators may give you further information, but some of it will be depressing.

thanks for ur answer, im not expecting anywere to be crime free but was just not wanting to move somewhere thats very troubled. thanks

I dont know how things are now, hopefully they've improved, because ten years or so back it was considered to be the worst crime centre for the whole of Spain, which I believe was the main reason for the low property prices.

Barcelona and Madrid have knocked it off the top spot since then.

The reasons for this dubious honour at that time were twofold mainly.

A mad building programme financed by crooked banks, politicians and developers led to an influx of dodgy Eastern Europeans after the Balkan wars to work in the building trade, there not being enough local workers to build all those thousands of cheap homes. Those dodgy Eastern Europeans built the houses and then broke into them to steal from the new owners, or clear the empty houses of their fittings. Their own violent lives also meant an increase in violent crimes including murders.

The crooked town hall saw the sudden and large increase in the population, and crime, and applied to Madrid for a National Police presence which they were entitled to by the population numbers.

When the already inefficient Guardia Civil found out that they were to be replaced, they applied for transfers en masse and stopped working. Just to report a crime would take days, and crime patrols were non-existent.

But Madrid got fed up with the crooks at the town hall and the National Police never came to Torrevieja, and still haven't.

But things got so bad, especially when local Spanish business people were murdered in their offices and homes, that the local police were quadrupled in numbers and the Guardia were forced to return to work with much improved conditions.

Things are much better now, a lot of the Eastern Europeans returned home when the building stopped and the local British expats started Neighbourhood Watch schemes all over the place to protect their own.

Interesting,
Nice to hear things have improved somewhat.
It must be about ten years since I was last around that way and obviously the situation was a bit desperate back then, so I never thought about going back.
So now you have at least some semblance of law and order and quite a few Scandies moving in to replace the E. Europeans to boot,..... cant be bad.

The influx of Scandinavians to Torrevieja happened far more than 10 years ago, possibly encouraged when Norway opened a consulate, or even an embassy in the town. They arrived in numbers before the Brits and are still here in numbers.

Thousands of Swedish people too, and from such a small population back home. I can only think that the local micro climate, with its iodine laden air from the giant salt lakes is a stark contrast to the harsh winters in the north of Europe.

When a dozen Scandinavians descend on a local Spanish bar it's like being transported into the land of the giants, but they are generally peaceful and respectable people and love riding around on bikes.