According to the Mayor of Almuñécar, Juan José Ruiz Joya, the underwater-park project is a step closer thanks to a lump of dosh from the Junta.
The Mayor, accompanied by the Councillor for Tourism, Daniel Barbero, explained that the Regional Tourism Board had earmarked 2.4-million euros for the Parque Azul de Vida Submarina – hopefully that is not the official name. The money actually comes from European funding under Next Generation.
The Mayor, of course, extolled the virtue of the Junta de Andalucía, now that it is firmly in the grip of his own party, naturally. He considers that the said underwater park will mark the ‘before and after’ in municipal tourism
The Councillor for Tourism, when he took the microphone, said that although the park was the ‘star project,’ there are in fact 25 tourism projects on the boil, amongst which is the pedestrianisation of La Herradura’s old town (he is also the First Concillor for La Herradura), the embellishment of the entrance to Almuñécar (which?) and above all a large step towards destination digitalisation “to convert us into an intelligent tourist destination.”
He went on to say that this would put the municipality “without doubt” at the head of tourism “once again.” He then went on to use the much-used (by politicians) and mystical term, ‘sustainable’ tourism that would break out of the limitations seasonal tourism and create more jobs and better the local economy.
These underwater features already exist off the Islas Medas near Gerona, as well as off Tabarca on the Costa Blanca de Alicante and the Islas Hormigas de Cabo de Palos in Murcia, for example.
It was in June 2007 the Ministry of the Environment belonging to the Central Government granted a concession to the then Mayor, Juan Carlos Benavides, some 120 hectares of seabed for the creation of an underwater park dedicated to leisure and tourism between Los Peñones del Santo and Playa de Cantarriján in which sunken ships, amphoraes, villas and other concrete structures would be place which would create articial reefs and regenerate the seabed.
(News: Almunecar, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)