The Agrupación Pantano Avanza held an emergency meeting to address eviction orders sent out by the area waterboard (Confederación Hidrográfica del Guadalquivir or CHG).
Four families in the reservoir village of El Pantano de Los Bermejales received this notification following closely on seven homes already having been demolished.
Many readers know or have visited this reservoir and the hamlet attached to it, but what the casual visitor would not have noticed is that the population is bleeding away so that now there are only 86 inhabitants living in the hamlet (44 men and 42 women).
This draining away of the population has already caused the forced closure of the local school, as well as bars, and businesses due to a lack of trade.
The majority of the people living there are elderly pensioners, the surviving partner of a marriage and even some children belonging to ex-workers on the dam.
The problem also appears to be the legalisation of properties: a 2019 agreement to transfer the properties to the Arenas del Rey Town Council and sell them to the residents was halted due to political shifts. In September 2019, the Town Council officially rejected the free transfer of the housing due to economic viability concerns and property registration denials.
What the residents’ action group wants was made public in a 10-page document demanding a face-to-face meeting with Town Hall representatives. They propose halting demolitions and instead implementing solutions like selling to current residents, creating a municipal housing stock, establishing long-term rentals, or repurposing empty homes for tourism and environmental entrepreneurs.
The position of the area waterboard, on the other hand, was expressed by the Operations Manager for the reservoir, Joaquín Navarro who explained that they need the houses empty of ex-employees or their descendants to house present day employees working on the reservoir and its dam.
Furthermore, the CHG intends to grant a 20-to-30-year lease to any entity willing to repair the infrastructure, but will default to demolition as a last resort to avoid legal liabilities and safety hazards.
On a more positive note, the few streets in the hamlet now have names assigned marked with ceramic tiles, so that emergency services can find homes that they are called out to. These streets, which are few, have never had names assigned.
Editorial comment: when I first visited the Reservoir in the mid 80s, there were two bars, a youth camping area for Scouts equipped with small wooden shelters and a fully functioning swimming pool for them. There was also a large house with accommodation for visiting children’s groups, as well as a military style cookhouse, a chapel and an administrative building. Nowadays, only the Camping facilities further down near the shore continues to function, and kept alive by seasonal camping enthusiasts in caravans, etc. and the foreign inhabitants in the prefabs just below the camping facilities.
(News: Bermejales Reservoir, Poniente, Granada, Andalucia)
Keywords: Village Demolitions Cause Panic, Waterboard, Confederación Hidrográfica del Guadalquivir, CHG) Arenas del Rey,
news, andalucia, granada, poniente, bermejale restaurants, village demolitions cause panic, waterboard, confederación hidrográfica del guadalquivir, CHG, arenas del rey