March Update

Our March meeting at the Hotel Continental dealt with the problems in the town hall, particularly to do with funding, petty corruption and new and ever tighter rules. An example of this last point: the ‘Blue Flags’ which are meant to guarantee beach cleanliness and services, used to need – a few years back – around thirty different bits of paper. This year, it’s over one hundred. This year, seaweed tossed onto the sand by the sea can’t be moved as the ecologists consider it ‘natural’ (i.e. – you have to tiptoe out at 3.00am when all the Greens are safely curled up on their futons to pick it up).
The town is without funding, thanks to the drop in building licences, and the new POTALA (Junta de Andalucía plans) offer almost no new buildable land for Mojácar – ever.
Mojácar is in fact threatened on several sides – the new implementation of ‘costas’ means that any beach building pre 1988 (defined as any town building within 50 metres of the sea, urbanisation building within 100 metres – now increased to 200 metres - and any ‘rural’ building under 500 metres from the sea) can now be freely bought or sold, but not repaired or extended, but there is, in effect, a 60 year lease on all of these buildings as they will be finally expropriated by the government in 2070. There are (apparently) no post 1988 beach buildings and… no… that popular discoteque isn’t illegal – it has the full and enthusiastic support of both ‘costas’ and ‘medio ambiente’.
The second threat is, of course, the POTALA, which is the plan for the future, which includes a high-speed-train track going through the artificial city of Llano Central, together with a rail station just outside Vera.