On the 23rd of August the construction company that is responsible for the work on the Puntalón-Carchuna stretch of the A-7, announced that it was laying off workers and closing down activity. This decision was the direct result of a minister’s comment that the company should not expect to get paid until 2015, even if the work were finished on time; i.e. 2012.

Few companies can take that sort of economic setback in their stride and Acciona (the said company) certainly wasn’t going to. They announced that they would lay off everybody by the 10th of September.

Lobres - Gorgorach section

Blackmail or not, it produced a response from the Central Government – a pledge that A-7 would not be put on hold, along with many other infrastructure projects, owing to the severe cut in government spending. Furthermore, the A-7 would be finished by 2012.

The trouble is, nobody believes them. Why is the company still laying people off if the question is solved? The reason is because Acciona doesn’t want words; it wants deeds in the form of a written promise that they will be paid upon completion of works.

But people are just so fed up with it all, and never was this so clear as the spontaneous action taken by drivers between Motril and Torrenueva, who simply decided that enough was enough and decided to drive in convoy at 10-kph along the N-340 between these two towns – on the Friday of the August bank holiday weekend. The Guardia Civil blew a fit and fined them, which they stoically accepted without protest or discussion, considering the price being ‘worth it.’

So let’s take a look at the three stretches of autovía to be completed. Amazingly, the Taramay – Lobres stretch has been motoring along, with work carrying on around the clock in two shifts.

The Gorgoracha-Puntalón was 70% complete before a hitch was discovered that would have resulted in an 80% increase in the budget. For that reason the Government had no other option but to cancel the contract, and put the job out to tender again, with a new budget.

The Puntalón-Carchuna stretch is one of the most important projects because its completion will eliminate the need for coastal traffic to pass through the Torrenueva bottleneck. Unfortunately, this last stretch is the one that Acciona is responsible for and where construction work has ground to a halt. In fact, the only work being carried out there is the collecting up of equipment and its storage. The tunnel mouths will be sealed with the material inside.

So, will the company get the money to carry on, or not?

The attack took place in the town square during festival activities, starting off as a heated argument before going nuclear.

Well, let’s not get carried away. The village has opened an Escuela de Trovo, where they will learn to play traditional cord instruments to be able to perform typical Alpujarra folk music.

Altogether 24 kids are enrolled, sixteen of whom will be learning traditional dances, six will be learning to play the said instruments and two are learning how to sing in verse; i.e., recount a story in verse.

According to the Mayor, Cecilio Martin, there has always been a tradition for this type of music in the village, and he doesn’t want to see it die out.

All told, 20 flats will be built in Calle Fuente Mariano for renting out with an option for purchase. Fifteen of them will be 2-bedroom flats, and two will be 3-bedroom ones. There will also be three 1-bedroom flats, one of which will be designed for an occupant with mobility problems.

The site, if you know the street, is where the old slaughterhouse stood (matadero municipal)
At the moment the contract is open for bidding until the 10th of this month, after which it will be awarded so that construction can begin in October and be completed within 18 months. Hmmm… that’s what the original article states, but if it doesn’t start until October, then 18 months later will be April 2012 – certainly not next year.

The hamlet has only seven inhabitants, no mains water, no tarmac streets and not a hint of TV. The access road is a 2-kilometre dirt track. Bargis used to have a church, but a little over a decade ago it fell into disrepair and is presently an abandoned ruin. The cemetery is overgrown with weeds. Sounds just the ticket, doesn’t it?

The teeming human mass of Bargis residents aren’t that chuffed with the Órgiva town hall, whom it considers has abandoned them, only remembering that the hamlet exists when the local elections come round, strangely enough.
The winter storms last year caused the cemetery wall to fall down, and as the Town Hall completely ignored their pleas – they didn’t even provide the materials – the seven inhabitants repaired it themselves, funding it from their own pockets. The last burial there was eleven years ago, which is just as well as the coffin has to be borne on shoulders along a steep dirt track, which is arduous enough to earn an Olympic Bronze.

It’s no good tramping around the outskirts of Órgiva looking for the hamlet, as it is 22 kilometres away – in fact, a few years back, Bargis used to belong to Fregenite. In those days it had 130 inhabitants, a school and three bars. Bargis got its first electricity supply in 1958 and a landline telephone finally made its first appearance in 1993.

Finally, if you’re thinking of visiting this lost hamlet, best not to do it during the summer as the population triples, and who wants to have to squeeze their way through a village, teeming with 21 people?

The Town Hall claims that the repair of the access road is not their responsibility, whereas collecting municipal taxes from the said villagers most certainly is, naturally.

So the villagers approached the provincial council and received the same answer. Next stop was the Junta de Andalucía in Sevilla – same story, of course.

But it’s a wonder that anybody can see what state the track is in because most to the village streetlights blew during the winter gales and, nobody has turned up to fix them. If somebody did come to change the bulbs, in some of them they will find bird’s nests, such is the state they’re in.

On the said Saturday the festive activities accrued a profit of 2,500 euros, thanks to the sale of marketing products; i.e., baseball caps. These funds will be handed over to the charity Ciudad de los Niños, which is based in one of the poorer quarters of Granada, namely La Chana.

Around 12,000 people turned up to scoff back the traditional grapes at the stroke of midnight, which has been going on since 1994, when a power cut just before midnight on the 31st of December prevented the usual celebrations. “What the hell,” they thought, “Let’s do it in August instead,” little suspecting that such a novel arrangement would attracted such a large following and becoming one of the top summer events in the Alpujarra.

Yes, the two underground car parks were opened by the 1st of August, although certainly in the case of Velilla, work continues even though the summer peak period has passed. However, never has it been so evident that the Town Hall is more intent upon forcing people to use these installations than providing much-needed parking for the summer visitors. Let’s take a look at a couple of events since San Juan and the onset of summer.

Firstly, as we reported in the July issue, Parking Leo was closed down for a week on the 22nd of June, causing 160 vehicle owners to abandon the installations under pain of being towed away. The Town Hall justified this mind-boggling move, on the very first day of summer, with a report from the municipal fire department, saying that the installations were deficient; i.e., were lacking certain signs and a lift/emergency stairs. Such was the supposed dire danger to members of the public that the ‘emergency’ work just could not wait until September the 30th.

So why is it, dear readers that both the new car parks in San Cristóbal and Velilla were opened without working lifts and God knows how many other deficiencies?

Every summer for at least the last five or so years, the site for the Palacios de Justicia behind Las Góndolas has been made available to summer visitors, In other words, improvised parking was provided for the massive influx of cars. Yet this summer, days after the new car parks being opened, the Local Police without prior warning came along and closed this parking area trapping all the cars within.

I have not been able to confirm this, but it also appears that the private parking area belonging to Hotel Hélios, next to the municipal sports pavilion, was also closed down a day or two after the inauguration of the San Cristóbal car park, thereby forcing the hotel to use these underground installations.

Now what conclusions can you or anybody draw from these controversial moves? You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes, right?

The Mayor announced, with the opening of the two new car parks, that the town had created 1,500 new parking spaces, all thanks to the new underground facilities: Altillo, Velilla, Juan Carlos and San Cristóbal. Bollocks! How many thousands of free parking spaces have been destroyed in the same period? Do we physically have more parking, paying or otherwise, since the construction of these installations?

The answer is no; incredibly we have fewer – do your own maths. Think of all the parking lost along the old Paseo Altillo (above and below); think of the lost parking along San Cristóbal; think of the lost parking along the top end of the Avenida de Andalucía; think of the lost parking along the Velilla road. We’re losing parking spaces, the Town Hall shuts down improvised parking behind Las Góndolas and the blue zones are so prolific that we can change our name from Costa Tropical to Costa Azul.

People are hopping mad. In the case of San Cristóbal, a family with a member in a wheelchair had the disagreeable surprise of having to heft the chair and occupant from the second level because the lifts don’t work. Somebody else had to do it with a pushchair and all their beach equipment. The reason that they were on the 2nd level in the first place is because the first level is reserved for private parking – brilliant!

One man demanded to use the complaints book – there wasn’t one, so he called the Local Police, who didn’t see a cause for complaint. Not impressed, he went to the Guardia Civil, who certainly did. Remember these installations are municipal owned and as the disgruntled user pointed out, if the installations would have been private the Local Police would have seen cause to accept a complaint…

The Mayor said that the unacceptable situation of cars being parked for a whole month has been eliminated by the introduction of the blue zones. Well, that is not really the case because people, like yours truly, had no other option during the whole of July but to leave the car parked without moving it, for fear of losing the parking space – I lost my passenger side wing mirror in that period.

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The P-4 sports facilities, which run down between the river and Avenida Principe de Asturias, are now complete and operative. Padel courts, tennis courts and other installations complete this strip of land, together with the play park for kids and the lengthy paseo for strolling virtually from one side of the P-4 to the other, just below the N-340.

Even the opposition must recognise that the Mayor has done a bloody lot to improve and expand sport facilities in Almuñécar in the last 25 years or so, adding to the towns inventory an inside heated swimming pool, the P-4 football stadium, the aforesaid facilities alongside the river, etc. The same is true concerning leisure areas such as the Parque Majuelo, the Taramay Park, and the impressive Parque Mediterraneo just below Hotel Playacálida.

You might not like the guy and have plenty of reasons for not doing so, but if we are to be fair, Benny has brought about plenty of much needed sports and leisure facilities for Almuñécar and La Herradura.

This advance has been possible, thanks to the Consejería de Economía, Innovación y Ciencia, who have financed a Centro Guadalinfo (free public access to Internet), in collaboration with the residents association.

The Centro Guadalinfo, which is equipped with 20 computers and is open to the public 40 hours a week, was possible thanks to a 36,000-euro budget from the Junta de Andalucía.