If you drive along the second-line beach road in Salobreña you will have noticed an empty plot announcing a private hospital. Gone!

It was a star project: a hotel, a geriatric residence, a training college and a thalassotherapy spa (seawater treatment). In reality the only thing that was ever built there were ant hills amongst the overgrown weeds and bustling bushes.

It was November 2002 that Enfermundi announced a 12m-euro budget that would convert Salobreña into a health-tourism focal point. The Town Hall broke out the party hats & farting cushions and rushed to provide the necessary permits and licences.

Although it has long been obvious that it was not going to happen, it took 13 years for the official death sentence to be handed down in the form of the Town Hall taking back the building plots after reaching an agreement with the licence holders.

The Town Hall agreed to pay out 310,000 euros to liquidate the outstanding debts belonging to Enfermudi and thus recuperating 5,000 sq/m in the Plan Parcial Playa area.

The deal, which was signed in Madrid between the Mayor, Mª Eugenia Rufino, and the Chairman of Enfermundi, Máximo González, came about after the latter approached the Town Hall on the 28th of April this year.

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