Wednesday, May 19, 2010

It was all an error

The town clerk, Antonio Saseta, the ex- mayor José Joaquín Moya and the ex- councillors from the socialist group in Bigastro told the public prosecutor and the judge yesterday that the city planning irregularities in respect of the plan to build a hotel complex up at La Pedrera were simply down to errors.

In August 2005, 35,000 square metres of land up at La Pedrera was sold off for 2.1 million Euros to Idearco along with 45,000 square metres of land to build golf practice ranges. The land was originally classified as rustic and so had to be re-categorised as urban land before building could commence. However, before the process of awarding the land was finished, it was sold to Idearco. In one council session the whole deal was set up giving no other company a chance.

This is all described now as a mistake put down to the fact that it happened in the middle of the building boom. The secretary claims that it was due to a typing error which he has only just discovered.

The ex-mayor justifies the decisions that were made on that basis that the hotel would be a means to diversify the economy of the town by creating a sustainable model for tourism in Bigastro. He goes on to claim that no other company had shown interest in the project. As it turned out, apart form the hotel, Idearco were also planning to build houses on the land and even advertised them for sale on the Internet.

Where does this leave everyone? Idearco don’t have permission to build what they had planned on the land and even if they had, I doubt that they would have the resources.The company are supposed to be building two apartment blocks in Sector D-6 neither of which is completed. The mistakes were made by Bigastro so I suppose it is down to them to solve the situation – 2.7 million Euros is a lot to spend on a piece of land you can do nothing much with!

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