As part of the austerity measures, the Government announced that it would cut back 6,400 million euros on public spending. Even before this announcement, the long-awaited completion date for the A-7 coastal highway had been set back to 2011. In fact, the Salobreña to Almuñécar stretch was hinted at not being ready until 2012. Now even that seems optimistic.

Patience has snapped, however, with the Chambers of Commerce Almería, Granada and Motril banding together with the Business Confederations of both provinces to demand the prompt completion of the A-7.

Quite apart from the non-appearance of the A-7, the N-340, coastal main road is falling apart and is being hastily patched up, ready to take on the onslaught of another summer of traffic.

Strangely enough, not one of the affected towns is governed by the PSOE, who hold power in the national and regional governments; i.e., La Herradura, Almuñecar, Salobreña and Motril. These main coastal towns are governed either be the CA (in the case of the first two) or by the PP (in the case of the last two.)

Does this have any real bearing? When you take into account the eight years that the PP were in power in Madrid, during which not one stretch of motorway was completed, either on the A-7 or A-44, it doesn’t seem so. Perhaps we should simply change from La Costa Tropical to La Costa Olivdada?
Which ever way you look at it, we are in for several summers of N-340 collapses, kilometric tailbacks and bottle necks where the Granada road reaches the coast, not to mention the Torrenueva gauntlet for east and westbound cars..