There’s a big blow up ) between the Mayor and the Comunidad de Regantes de Río Verde (association irrigation users) The Mayor’s party is accusing the farmers of having caused the loss of 12m euros in grants to modernise the irrigation system.

The farmers, on the other hand, point out that it was them – not the Town Hall, behind the project in the first place; i.e., bloody cheek on the part of the House of Horrors, a.k.a., the Town Hall.

What caused the outburst from the CA (Mayor’s party) was the recent inauguration of a completely modernised system in Motril.

The CA claims that the Comunidad de Regantes, which has 1,200 members, stalled the project because landowners (members of the Comunidad) refused to give permission for the piping to cross their land.

The Comunidad were flabbergasted to hear the said accusation: “Of course we want to modernise the system and thus save water! It was us that launched the project in the first place,” said the chairman, Manuel Alabarce.

He went on to explain that the original (and only) project foresaw the water pipes running along the river, but the project was modified and now requires the system to run through the farms of 400 separate land owners, and that getting so many people to agree takes time. “Some farmers just don’t want the pipes running across their land and we have to respect that because we do not have the authority to force them to or carry out a compulsory purchase on the affected land,” he reasoned.

He finished off by pointing out that the grant is frozen (not cancelled) as the Comunidad is trying to convince the authorities to let the irrigation pipes run along the riverbed, as was the original idea.