The following is a letter from a concerned resident of Punta de la Mona, La Herradura, about the proposed ‘Seven Star Hotel Project’ and the potential impact the project would have on the local community and coastline:

Dear Mr Darby

I attach the following letter, for publication in The Seaside Gazette:

Save this little gem of a beach
Spain’s first seven star hotel to be built here in Almuñecar? It is only human nature to want to believe that such a miracle might actually happen; to believe that someone might make the kind of massive investment that will reverse the economic decline and pull the
local economy out of the worst recession in decades.

Jesper Birkmann, of development company KEOPS/Bahia Fenicia, has certainly been making the most of these hopes in his “charm offensive” in the local press recently, publicising the hotel and residential housing development that his company, in association with Banyan Tree Holdings, is proposing to build on the Peñón del Lobo, between the Marina del Este and Cotobro.

Not everyone, though, has lost all sense of reality over this. The luxury hotel market is virtually on its knees at the moment, and here in Andalucia at least two ‘five star’ hotels in Marbella have gone out of business in recent years, as has the Bobadilla in Loja,
the Byblos in Mijas Costa, and Las Dunas near Estepona (which I believe was of a similar ultra-luxurious quality to that of the proposed new hotel)  Against this background, the building of a new ‘five-star luxury superior’ hotel would not seem to make much financial sense.

However, as two of the three “phases” of this whole development will consist of private luxury housing, one has to question the seriousness of Bahia Fenicia’s intentions with regard to the building of this new hotel. One also questions the seriousness of Banyan Tree/Angsann’s intentions too, unless some of the hotel’s ‘200 rooms’ will, in fact, be privately owned apartments, or they have a financial interest in the building of the private housing, which is where the real financial return in the whole development must
potentially lie.

The current economic crisis is not the only reason for the slump in the luxury hotel market. These days, does anyone who is rich enough to be able to afford to holiday anywhere in the world still want to wake up and see a sea of concrete outside their hotel window – or even see a hillside doted with villas?

Mr Birkmann has talked of Almuñecar having a “wonderful climate and landscape, and not being over developed like some places,” yet this is exactly what he wants to do – develop the last bit of unspoiled land between Almuñecar and La Herradura, and hence complete the coastal ‘ribbon development’ between the two!

If this hotel goes ahead it would be built just above El Muerto beach, which is at present is popular with nudist sun bathers. What should this fact tell us? Not only is El Muerto beach secluded, with limited access by foot path only – perfect for nudists –  but it
also happens to be a charmingly situated  beach, with natural beauty, as anyone viewing it from Cotobro can see (except where the hillside above has been scarred by Bahia Fenicia’s previous attempts to build their houses).

If the hotel is built, both it and the housing development on Peñón del Lobo would be bound to have a severe impact on the beach. (won’t the wealthy hotel guests complain about seeing nudists from their window? – no doubt their complaints will soon be upheld!)

I’m not a nudist, but I am a keen walker, and over the past few years I have been walking the coastal footpath between La Herradura and Almuñecar at least a couple of times a week (or I did do so, until Mr Birkmann illegally closed the foot path recently, with a padlocked gate!). I would much rather see the nudists on the beach – and the partridges and chameleons and snakes and lizards that I often saw along the footpath on Peñón del Lobo – than see this unspoiled coastal land being urbanised and El Muerto beach itself  become effectively a private beach for a clientele of wealthy hotel guests, being flown in and out of their luxury hotel by helicopter.

At a time when visitors, rich and poor alike, are deserting Spain’s overdeveloped coastline elsewhere in droves, haven’t we learned by now to do better and preserve what unspoiled bits of the coastline we have left? If the developers and the local council had any real vision they would conserve Peñón del Lobo as a ‘green lung’ between Almuñecar and La Herradura, while setting their development back on the other side of the road that runs behind it.

Unfortunately, it is no good expecting a local Ayuntamiento to come to a wise decision about a development like this, as local councils will always be susceptible to commercial pressures, or have members with an actual financial interest in the venture under consideration. The final decision, though,  rests with the Junta de Andalucia, in Seville, and it now seems that approval for this particular project depends on it being accepted as part of the revised PGOU ‘urban-growth’ plan that has been submitted to the Junta by the newly elected Almuñecar town council.

I have written to the Junta de Andalucia objecting to this development, and I hope others who wish to see the Peñón del Lobo area and the ‘little gem’ of El Muerto beach both preserved will do the same.

Yours sincerely
Mark le Claire
Punta de la Mona
La Herradura