The Ministry of the Interior has rejected, again, the request to have a permanent Guardia-Civil post for La Herradura.
On the 22nd of June, the Almunecar Town Hall offered to provide a building plot to facilitate the re-opening of an independent Guardia-Civil post in La Herradura. Since 2003, when the old one closed, the inhabitants of La Herradura have had to rely the Almunecar-based Guardia Civil, except during the summer, when the Guardia Civil has an office in the municipal-market building.
Bascially, the Director General for the Police and Guardia Civil, Francisco Javier Vazquez Lopez, considers that the seven Guardia-Civil policemen that were based in La Herradura’s castle are perfectly integrated in the Almunecar post and give priority to La Herradura in their daily schedules. In other words, they are also working the Almunecar beat, unless something crops up in the village.
Just to clarify a couple of points, it is worth mentioning that the Guardia Civil are a military unit, forming part of the Spanish Army, which is why it is known as the Guardia Civil Corps. Until recently, their financing came out of the Defence budget and was handled administratively by the Ministry of Defence. However, they have since been transferred over to the Ministry of the Interior, under the Director General of the Police.
Bear in mind that the Guardia Civil has about 80,000 servicemen, spread between 2,691 barracks or posts. There is a Guardia Civil post in Otivar, which covers the upper, Rio Verde valley, whose total population is under 2,000 and even if you include Jete, only brings it up to under 3,000.
According to the Almunecar Town Hall, La Herradura has a standing population of 7,000, which increases to 20,000 during the summer months. Many might feel that those figures are inflated, but whatever the case, the standing population of La Herradura is double, at least, the total population of the Rio Verde Valley, which has an independent G/C post.
Of course, the distance factor is a clincher, as La Herradura is about six kilometres from Almunecar by road, where as Jete is eight and Otivar 14.
The reason that La Herradura had such a strong Guardia presence, has a lot to do with it being a coastal town and the problem of smuggling/pirates: The La Herradura castle was occupied by the Spanish Army until 1839 and then taken over by the Carabineros/Guardia Civil in 1940. The reason that the Spanish Army was there until the beginning of the 19th Century was to counter Barbary pirate attacks, which by the 1830’s had died out.
At the time that the Guardia moved into the castle, just after the end of the Spanish Civil War, they also had sub-posts on Cerro Gordo over looking Cantarijan, and another on the Peñon de Lobo, overlooking what is today Marina del Este.
Obviously, the Ministry doesn’t want to have to finance a separate Guardia-Civil post in La Herradura, because it’s not just a case of housing seven policemen, but their families too – Cuarteles have family housing. Furthermore, funds are not exactly abundant at the moment, or in the foreseeable future.
The Almunecar post is out on the western outskirts of town, actually on the main road, so in the case of an emergency call out, they can be screaming into La Herradura in minutes.
So, what do our La Herradura-resident readers think about it?
(News: Herradura, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)