The story behind the new Mercado Municipal in Almuñécar is a drawn out litany of botch job after botch job.
It goes back a long way after the original one on Calle Lonja (which is near the old Bonsai Park) was demolished to build the ‘new’ one in 1988, which was so badly built that it was demolished to make way for this latest one that has no mains electricity and consequently, no air conditioning.
Benavides built the 1988 one, which was the crown jewel of his legislature, enjoying 2-level, underground parking, but the trouble was that it was built with shoddy materials… much like the aquarium next door.
Mayor Trinidad Herrera used the pandemic of 2020 to demolish it, safe in the knowledge that nobody could come out to protest, as they did when the old Paseo del Altillo was demolished.
Demolishing the market during lockdown was illegal, many consider, because she brought in outside workers at a time when strict travel restrictions were in place, precisely to prevent contagion between municipalities.
Anyway, Trini moved on to higher responsibilites and left her second-in-command, Juan José Ruiz Joya, as the Mayor. He won the next elections confirming his mayoralty and during all this time (from April 2020 to February 2026) the new municipal market was under construction. But when it was finished, the Mayor inaugurated the building even when it wasn’t ready, hence all the present problems.
Hey, politicians, right?
Now, the Town Hall has just approved a budget of 70,000 euros to sort out the problem of aircon and a stable electricity supply rather than just relying on generators.
The Town Hall has taken out a credit line of 1,327,968 euros (at a time when it has to find 20 million to pay off a property developer) to sort out several public buildings.
Mayor Ruiz Joya said, “Our responsibility doesn’t end when we opened the facility, but rather it continues today,” adding, “When we see that something could and should function better, our obligation is to act, listen and find a solution.”
Remember that building was designed with glass covered walls to take advantage of natural light, which is just fine and dandy when you have aircon, but when you haven’t in the sweltering heat of summer, inside a virtual greenhouse, then fishmongers end up selling ready-cooked fish.
Hell, the Aquario was original built as an underground, ice-rink but the ice kept on melting so it was scraped and turned into an aquarium where at first they boiled they fish because of the same problem – insufficient aircon.
Anyway, Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the situation today and we have very little faith in our town planners, politicians and the Good Will of Mankind.
(Editorial: Almunecar, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)
Keywords: Municipal Market Woes, Aircon, Electricity Generators, Sweltering Heat, Botch Job, Mayor Ruiz Joya
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