The parking under the municipal market in Almuñécar has been closed since 2012, but things are slowly moving, at last, but it is going to cost the town very dear.
The Mayor, Trinidad Herrera, has always insisted that the lease-holding company Hermanos Garcia Motril, had failed to carry out necessary repair work, but after a report from the Regional Advisory Committee, which decided in favour of Hermanos Garcia Motril, she has had to abandon this position.
Furthermore, the R.A.C. found that the Town Hall should pay the lease holder three percent of its estimated earnings during the four years that the parking has been closed. The Town Hall would also have to return a sum paid in advance in 2010, when Juan Carlos Benavides was still the Mayor.
This upfront payment is calculated at 2.6m euros, according to the Councillor for Urban Development, José Manuel Fernández.
Consequently, in the last Plenary Meeting of the Town Council, two hours were spent on this question; i.e., four fifths of the whole meeting. The meeting ended with the governing party and the IU voting in favour, with the PSOE abstaining. Benavides’ party, the Almuñécar Por Sí, on the other hand, voted against the return of this money, insisting that the governing party should have insisted on the leaseholder completing its lease period whilst at the same time paying the said company or a third party to carry out the necessary repair work.
“They have taken us down a path that is going to cost Almuñécar four million,” remarked Sr. Benavides.
The Councillor for Urban Development replied that the opposition (Benavides) complains that it is going to be an economic blow for the town because of this development, but in reality it is a blow because Benavides spent the 2.6m euros on other things.
Whatever the case, the point is that not only will the Town Hall have to find the money to pay it over, but it will also have to pay for the rebuilding of the whole market building, having championed such a project within its election pledges; something that is going to be very, very difficult to finance now.
(News: Almunecar, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)