Heavy goods vehicles will continue to rely on a single land road to reach the A-7 autovia from Motril Port, despite repeated promises for a double-lane access.

As always, the fate of the Costa Tropical ends up as a hot potato being juggled by the two main political parties; the PP and PSOE. The former, whilst in the opposition, formed protest platforms to shame the then Central government into finishing the A-7, but now, you will not hear a peep from them – their enthusiasm and indignation has evaporated. The PSOE, on the other hand, freed from decision making, fall back into the cozy position of demanding infrastructure on a national level, knowing full well that there is no money for it.

In short, yet another indigestible helping of political hypocrisy, practised to a fine art by both of these parties, when in the driver’s seat in Madrid.

So what’s the problem with the Motril Port connection? On Friday the 1st of February it became known that Motril will remain the only Spanish Mediterranean port, come the end of 2014, without an autovia connection – let alone a rail one. The PP Government had recently promised that both the Gorgoracha-Puntalón stretch of the A-7 and the Motril Port connection to it would be completed before the end of 2014.

Now, it is a case of, yes, there will be a road connection for the thousands of vehicles that use the port, but it will only be single-lane traffic in either direction, which is hopelessly inadequate.

We are talking about a section of much-needed dual carriageway that is not even a kilometer long.

The previous socialist Minister of Public Work, José Blanco (at present facing corruption charges) promised four lanes of traffic in 2009. At that point in time there was a consensus between the PP and PSOE over this necessity. Yet now the PP does not see it as necessary… now that they are in power. We could reproduce a photograph of the ex-Mayor of Motril, now a conservative MP in the regional parliament, demanding the dual carriage way connection, but what’s the point?

But you would be wrong to believe that the socialists, busy demanding the impossible from the conservative government is noisily demanding that the port should have the very connection that they, whilst in power, promised, because they are not. They appear to have taken on board that if the port does have the promised connection then the budget will bulge and further delay the main A-7 completion.

Even the port authorities have bitten the bullet, preferring a single-lane affair by the end of 2014 than the never-delivered promise of something more adequate.

According to the Provincial leader of the PP, Santiago Pérez, the present project is the one that the PSOE drew up and approved and that the present government can’t change it to include double-lane access to the port without having to start from scratch again, which would just delay things further. He reproaches the PSOE for not including it during the time that the who section was being drawn up and re-budgeted again after construction work struck unstable rock along the planned route of the Gorgoracha-Puntalón.

The PSOE Sentator, Juan Manuel Fernández, claims that it was always the intention of the PSOE to include the double-lane access and that the only reason that they didn’t was that the arrangement was to finish it in stages; i.e., first a new, single-lane connection and then this to be modified into a double-lane one.

“It was agreed and even talked through with the Motril Town Hall (PP run), because they had to cede land for the new port access, so they knew perfectly well about the arrangement but now they are unwilling to assume this responsibility,” explained the senator.

He further pointed out that a project, even when adjudicated, can be modified, which is precisely what has happened to the AVE (high-speed train) routing. “The difference is that they not so keen on fighting for it [the port access] as they were when they were in the opposition,” he concluded ironically.

Finally, the Chairman of the AECOST (Business Association for the Coast, asks the two parties to stop using the A-7 and Rules Dam water distribution network as ammunition in their political their squabbles and to reach an agreement, once and for all, to get both projects finished.

(News: Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)