Anybody entering Almuñécar from the west is greeted by the skeletal image of what was supposed to be Hotel Picadilly. It is an eyesore and has been for over a decade. Yet it continues to stand there despite a court order for it to be demolished.

The reason that this hotel was stillborn was that it exceeded the number of floors permitted by the PGOU; i.e., the 1987 Urban Development Plan, which has yet to be superseded. According to the CA, the owner of the hotel project is the father of the PP Councillor for Trade and Fiestas, María del Mar Medina.

This hotel is yet another case of a building being erected on a steep hillside, taking advantage of the difference in levels to include floors as ‘basements’ even though three sides of these lower-level floor are clearly not ‘underground.’

So, that’s the history of it and here is what is occurring now. The Spokeswoman for the CA Eva Gaitán Díaz, is demanding that the Mayor, Trinidad Herrera, puts into effect the demolition order which has been laying dormant for the last 20 months.

Councillor Gaitán Díaz says that on the 12th of November, 2012, her party formally requested to be informed about what measures were being taken by the Town Hall concerning the demolition order. With over three months having transpired since then, no response has been made, in what the CA considers a clear breach of protocol, denying them their constitutional right as elected members of the Town Council to have at their disposal such information.

It was back on the 26th of July 2011 that the hotel project developer announced that he was drawing up a demolition project to avoid the Town Hall carrying out the order in his stead and handing him the bill. Since this point 20 months have gone by without either party carrying out the demolition.

The CA considers that this ‘inactivity’ coupled with the impossibility of obtaining a reply from the Town Hall to its request, is highly suspicious, especially now that the daughter of the hotel-project owner is a PP councillor.

Let’s see what the response is from the Mayor’s office.

(News: Almunecar, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)