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A brief article in La Voz says that works on the Almanzora motorway are supposed to have restarted today after a geotechnical survey was completed ahead of schedule.

Anyone seen any workers? The head of the Almanzora Valley Chamber of Commerce says he is “delighted”.

An arts and craft fair is to be held in the Almanzora Palace on Sunday August 8th from 5.00pm to 9.00pm. The Almanzora Palace is the rambling, run down yet strangely beautiful 19th century home of the Marquess of the Almanzora, whose name I misremember. It’s just been handed over to the local townhall who are doing it up, and a local society is very active in raising funds for its upkeep.

This will be in conjunction with APSA who will be also be organising fund raising stalls, a raffle and a fashion show.

The money raised from stallholder fees will go to the Palace fund and the other monies raised to APSA.

There should be lots of stalls covering ceramics, art, knitted goods, homebaked goods, books etc
There will also be fund raising stalls and a raffle for APSA as well as the fashion show which will strt at 6.oopm.

There will also be live entertainment from local musicians and dance groups.

The stalls are 5€ and if anyone wants to reserve a stall they should contact Lorraine on 950 064 484 or 687  569 113.

It appears that the Junta has found the private investment necessary to finish off the Almanzora motorway, and has promised that the rest of the works will be contracted out by the end of this year / beginning of 2011.

After announcing that they’d run out of cash, they are now hunting around for companies to lend them money, in exchange for lucrative maintainence contracts over the next 50 years.

They appear to have been surprised by the amount of companies wanting to invest. Well, duh – give the Junta 20 million now, and in exchange get an unbreakable maintainence contract for the next 50 years at preferential rates? What’s not to like? No wonder people are falling over themselves to invest!

Anyway, long story short, Almanzora motorway is back on track, according to La Voz.

It appears, to judge from the irate posters over on arboleas.co.uk (link) that someone with sticky fingers and a large van emptied the InStorage warehouse in the Almanzora valley.

As the owner of the business appears to have, ahem, “returned to the UK for personal reasons”, rumours go from the nave owner recouping his unpaid rent, to the owner deciding he needed a nestegg back in the UK, to someone spotting that all these lovely Brits had put lots of things into a large warehouse with no security camaras (ready packaged for easy transport, of course).

It used to be called Instyle / Instorage until the partners split up, as I understand it. The people who run InStyle have nothing to do with Instorage now.

Watch out for swarthy looking gentlemen flogging off electrodomesticos with UK plugs on them down the local flea market, is my advice…

And so it takes place.
ZP’s massive cutting of public expenditure will affect the Almería AVE line, Minister of Development José Blanco announced last night.
6,400 million euros of public spending on public works is being slashed. The Ministry will be announcing in a few days which contracts, even ones already signed, will not be honoured.
As funds initially earmarked for the project will be reduced, the completion date for the line will be put back by one year. So instead of taking the train from Vera to Murcia in 2016, it’ll be 2017………..???
No news yet on whether this also affects the Almanzora motorway, on which works have stopped “pending a technical review after terrain issues” according to the Ministry of Public Works (they promised that work will restart in two months).
Also, Granada townhall claims that the cutting of public funds has sent it into bankruptcy, saying that 75% of the funds it was expecting have “vanished”. (El Ideal).

Works have stopped on the Almanzora motorway. Commuters on the dirt track, laughably called a bypass, that connects the towns in the region around the works, are reporting seeing nobody on the road, machines gone, children playing football on the half built bridges, etc, etc.

This has lead to a rumour that ZP has personally ordered the cancellation of the works to save money, as part of his 5% cut out of expenses.

The Ministry of Public Works, in La Voz, have issued a stern press release denying the rumours.

It seems that whilst happily digging out a mountain, somebody spotted that the original geotecnical plans were… ah hem… “not conductive to reality”. IE, slipshod.

So works have stopped whilst the technicians redo their sums. Should take about six weeks. The Ministry say works will recommence in two months, and that money is available to finish the works without problems.

Is this, perchance, a joke on the Junta’s part?

Junta sets up real estate network to sell legal properties to expats

Well, at least they recognise that they’ve destroyed Andalucia as a second home residence by allowing builders to put up lots of shoddy, illegal homes then bugger off scot free. Then knocking the homes down with compensating the expats who have bought them. Which, as you can imagine, has not gone down well with the expats who have warned everyone not to come to Spain.

The solution? Apparantly, instead of legalising the homes already built and punishing the people who put them up, is to gather all the unsold homes and legalise them, before trying to flog them, thus allowing the builders to recoup costs and build more.

People who have already brought in Andalucia can go whistle.

Sooner we get rid of the PSOE the better. Incompetent bunch of “b”ankers. Juan Espadas, our local Housing Honcho, has admitted “there is no solution in sight” for the 6000+ illegal homes in the Almanzora.

I was up at the opening of the new 10 pin bowling centre in Arboleas, the Arboleas Bowling Centre.

Amazing place. I walked in and thought I’d been transported to a big city. No expense spared on the decor.

12 high tech bowling lanes, comfy shoes, nice socks and even better prices. Spacy, decent a/c and a large cafeteria serving what looked like quite decent snacks and meals.

I predict a rosy future, and if you fancy a game – well, prices start from €3,50 p.p. per game, so what are you waiting for?

Amigos Bowling Centre

More and photos: http://www.thereader.es/en/almeria-news-stories/413-new-bowling-centre-opens-in-arboleas.html

Lenox is announcing the organisation of a peaceful and legal demonstration in Almeria city against urban abuse in the countryside.

“Theme: Stop Corruption. Justice Now. Support us. We bought in good faith. Save our homes. Stop planning and real estate abuse. Regularisation now. Justice for the Priors. Transparency and Citizen Participation.

The organisers, residents in the province of Almería, are holding a peaceful protest: (1) against real estate and planning corruption and insecurity and to ask for justice; (2) to ask for solutions and the protection of purchasers in good faith, some of which, are subject to the threat of demolition, and many of which do not have proper water and electricity; (3) to seek transparency and citizen participation in the regularisation process; (4) against proposed charges the Junta seeks to levy within the regularisation process, and which should be met by those responsible, and to ensure this is guaranteed in writing; (5) to ask for justice for the Prior family, victims of so-called ‘planning irregularities’, whose house was demolished a year ago, and who have not yet seen any sign of redress.”

Thank you for the support of the following citizens movements: AVEP, AULAN, AUAN, AUN, LSOS, Ciudadanos Europeos (other contacts at ‘politics’ in links at top of page).

If anybody wants to have a seat on a chartered bus for a nominal charge (Vera, Mojacar, Turre and Los Gallardos pick-ups), get in touch with AULAN secretary ASAP at info@aulan.es or phone 950 069 558.

Read it here.

In the IV Urban Planning conference in Albox yesterday, Luis Caparros, AKA “Mr Demolition Man”, announced that the Juntas’ Planning Department would proceed to legalise “a large number” of illegal “urban centres” that are scattered across the Almanzora.

The Juntas’ definition of “urban centre” is of several houses in close proximity that can be used to justify the reclassification of the surrounding land to urban and the consequent construction of houses next to them. If you remember, this was why the Priors house was demolished, as it was deemed that it together with the neighbouring houses (also under a demolition order, not yet executed) could form the nucleus of a new village.

In brief, this is the expected announcement that the Junta will start legalising lots of nonthreatening homes, which will allow them to have connections to utilities – and, of course, be taxed.