There’s a spot of conflict between the old Sol Meliá hotel, now Playa Almuñécar, and the Town Hall over subventions – we’re talking about a piffling 346,709 euros; in other words around 2,310 consecutive months of full page adverts in the Seaside Gazette, (i.e., for the next 192 years) – could be yours!

So, what’s happened? The previous owners of the hotel, Mirador de Almuñécar S.L. received a subvention from the Town Hall under the Fomento para Hoteles de Nueva Creacion scheme, in exchange for keeping the hotel open for ten consecutive years, every month of the year.

It is not so much that the hotel owners received this sum, but that they were excused paying it in taxes and opening licences etc.

Therefore, the reclamation is not against Hoteles Playa, but the original company that built and set up the hotel, as they were the benefactors.

The Town Hall accuses the hotel of having closed from the end of September last year until the end of the following October – a breach of the contract terms. This closure was registered both by Town Hall inspectors, backing their findings with photographs, and the impossibility of making a reservation via Internet at the hotel from between the above mentioned dates. Let’s wait and see!