Salobreña now has a solution for the constant flooding at the entrance to the town, starting under the N-340 bridge. The trouble is, the Town Hall doesn’t have the money to bring it about, but, as the Spanish say, algo es algo.

The Mayor, María Eugenia Rufino, announced the news in the Mancomunidad’s press room, accompanied by its Chairman, Sergio García Alabarce and the surveyor belonging to the company who came up with the plan, Julio Roldán.

The plan will cost 4.5m euros, so Salobreña will have to find funding from other administrations on a provincial, regional or national level. One of the possibilities is an existing especial grant for trading estates, which is stretching it a bit, perhaps.

Furthermore, she stated it doesn’t necessarily have to be carried out in one go as it could be done in stages, along the lines of the work along the Paseo Marítimo.

Sr. Rodán says that the flooding is because the municipal, rain-drainage system is incapable of handling the run-off from the other side of the N-340 together with the rainfall already falling on the flooded areas

He says that the solution is to modify the existing drainage system (surprise!) with a new collector point, taking all the water coming from north of the N-340 (the trading estate)  directly to Río Guadalfeo, some two kilometres away. Salobreña also needs another internal system capable of handling 11 cu/m-per/sec, or in other words, 11,000 litres.

The solution also involves the dredging of the Cota 50 water-channel down to the Rambla de la Caleta, as well as a reorganisation of the irrigation channels that lead down from the area known as El Hacho. Lastly the drainage network that goes past the entracne to the Colegio Mayor Zaragoza needs to be eliminated.

He concluded that this was the cheapest option as most of the work will take place on publicly owned land with little need for compulsory-purchase orders.

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