The Environmental Department at the Almuñécar Town Hall is in the process of cutting down over fifty palm trees in order to improve street access.

The Washingtonias palm trees are being eliminated because they cause a hinderence along narrow streets where they were planted.

They also act like motorways for rats that climb up them and infest flats.

The move was at the request of people who live along these streets for precisely the above reasons, so the Town Hall has finally reacted.

The Councillor for the Environment, Luis Aragón, explained that his department has been using cherry pickers in order to reach the fronds at the top and cut the trees up into sections from the top down, in order not to damage buildings or the pavement..

He went on to explain that in some cases the palms had already grown too high to prune every year as they reached the equivalent height of a four/five storey block of flats.

Councillor Aragón admitted that when the palm trees were planted the administration at the time hadn’t taken into account just how high they grow nor how they would get in the way of people using the streets.

The photo shows the street next to the old fishmarket, just off the Avenida de Andalucía. It’s worth explaining that up until the early 80s the municipal market was a 2-storey, round building at the end of Calle Muller (where the Sevillana office used to be).

Almuñécar has some 10,000 palm trees, the majority of which are Washingtonias, so losing 50 is not going to make much of a difference. It was at the end of the 80s and during the 90s when palm trees were planted in squares, along paseos, streets, avenues and in clumps on beaches..

Editorial comment: There will be quite a few residents of Almuñécar who will not be shedding any tears to see so many palm trees disappear around town.

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