Monday, August 27, 2012

He cost the town a lot of money

There are those who used to say that José Joaquín Moya did a lot for Bigastro. Compared with neighbouring towns, Bigastro seemed to be prospering under his leadership. He certainly had ambitious plans for its development as outlined them an exhibition held in the Auditorium. These included the plans for housing in Sector D-6, a multi storey car park in the town, an aparthotel at La Pedrera and a solar farm in the same area. All have proved to be a drain on the town for various reasons.

We are all painfully aware that the town owes a small fortune to Idearco for the land they bought to create the aparthotel, the problems with Sector D-6 and the failure of the multi storey car park that remains closed but what of the solar farm?

In 2006, the socialist council lead by Moya, granted permission to Eurener to build a solar farm at La Pedrera. The company paid a deposit of 120,000 euros to the council and started clearing the land. The deal was that Eurener would have the concession for 24 years for which they would pay 10,000 euros per year.

The PP party, who were in opposition at the time, objected to the plan as did the environmental group Seprona.  The Ministry of the Environment therefore halted the work and so it was left in abeyance.

Understandably, Eurener are seeking return of the 120,000 euros plus 23,859 in interest along with a further 9,000 euros for the final deposit. The company also claim that 27,000 euros was spent from public funds to promote the project and attract investors. That is an awful lot of money that the town does not have.

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