With the slogan ‘Let's make our town grow’, Calpe Town Council is launching a campaign to promote census registration and data updating. To this end, the Town Register Department will be distributing from next Monday at the Citizen's Advice Bureau a piece of paper with a QR code explaining the obligation of every person to register on the census in the town where they live.
It also provides information on the documentation required to register on the census or to update data in the event of a change of address, as well as the procedure for carrying out these formalities. It also indicates how Spanish citizens should proceed in the event of moving to another municipality or country. The QR also provides information on the advantages, aid and programmes available to those who are registered on the census.
The paper support on which all this information appears contains the seeds of a plant inside. When the paper is submerged and placed in a pot, a plant sprouts. The idea is to establish a parallelism between the campaign slogan ‘Let's make our town grow’ and the growth of the plant contained in the information paper.
Last December the National Institute of Statistics notified the Town Council that the figure for the municipality, resulting from the revision of the municipal census as of 1 January 2023, is 25,854 inhabitants. This represents an increase of 1,758 new inhabitants since the last official figure. However, reaching this figure and avoiding the decline in the municipal census entails an intense task for the City Council.
In the last few years, the Municipal Census Department has implemented various actions to prevent population loss. One of the problems detected is the lack of information among citizens, who in many cases are convinced that they are already registered or are unaware of the need to renew the census if they are foreigners.
The Town Council estimates that hundreds of foreign residents are not registered with the INE because they have not renewed their registration in the municipal census, as by law EU residents registered in the Central Register of Foreigners or non-EU residents with long-term residence permits must renew their registration in the census every five years and the rest of foreigners every two years.
For this reason, the Town Hall has launched several campaigns, aimed at all citizens, foreign or not, resident in Calpe, to encourage them to register or renew their registration. Recently, the councillor responsible for the census, Paqui Solivelles, met with various foreign groups to inform them of the need to register and explain the procedure.