The Mayor of Salobreña is not happy that restoration work on the castle has been overlooked again by Central Government where grants are concerned.

The Ministerio de Fomento assigns cultural grants to municipalities every year for this kind of work; restoration, etc. The grant is a percentage set aside from any public work with a municipality: any work carried out where the N-340 goes through Salobreña, for example would generate a 1%-grant from the total budget.

In 2012, Salobreña requested a grant for the co-financing of the first phase of the castle restoration, but nothing was heard back. It was the Junta that finally provided the funds from its Iniciativa de Turismo Sostenible (ITS). The Junta provided 600,000 and the Town Hall put 400,000 from the municipal coffers.

With the first phase completed, Salobreña again submitted a request for a grant from Madrid but again, it was left out of the grant awarding. The whole of Andalucia was assigned 15.4m euros with Granada receiving 2.3m euros, which went to projects in the city of Granada and Guadix.

The Mayor had had her hopes up because in Madrid they had assured her that the castle project was well placed for a grant. She recognises that Salobreña was competing with 700 other such projects, but the fact that they were passed over last year would swing it for the town especially because of the project’s historical, cultural and archeological relevance.

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