A week or so ago a reader (Paul) wrote in to say that something had gone wrong with the work on Plaza de La Independencia in La Herradura.

We were tied up at the time getting the February edition of the Gazette ready for the printer.

Work on the square had not only stopped but it looked like they were removing some of the surface already laid.

Since then the Spokeswoman for local PSOE, Rocío Palacios, took the opportunity to deliver a blow and ridiculed the Mayor, Juan José Ruiz Joya, for having “announced with pomp & fanfare that work had commenced on the square on the 12th of December.”

Yet since then shops and other businesses around the square have had to put up with construction work that has meant that potential customers were kept away from the square.

She added that nobody understood why he had decided to give the go ahead just before Christmas and thus sabotage seasonal shopping. Sra. Palacios considers that they had waited for the last moment to start the work so that it could be inaugurated just before the municipal elections.

She thinks that later the Mayor pestered the construction company to get a move on because the ‘pre-election, inauguration window’ would soon close.

And then work came to a halt. The problem appears to be that the cement laid is too heavy because the square surface is also the roof of the underground car park. So, the design has to be changed, meaning that it won’t be anything like the artist impression handed out by the Mayor. And, of course, it might not now be finished in time for a spot of electoral preening

Finally, she considers that it has been a lost opportunity to improve the underground car park – installations that are no stranger to problems – and thus give the village La Herradura parking facilities in the centre of the village.

In short, it’s a complete botch job, all round, in her opinion.

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