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Issue 566
Outrage at tax hike
Pensioner Betty Gower lives on the coastline at Fustera and has seen her rates bill jump by €82 to €755 this year – an increase of over 10 percent!
NORTH EDITION
Jon Gaunts Column This week Jon talks about The Red Arrows, A S results, Raul Moats ashes & find out how much Gordon Brown is charging for his services! • p16
One in five specs wearers don’t wear them behind the wheel
A nationwide poll of 3,000 drivers, commissioned by Specsavers, revealed that one in three had not been for an eye examination in more than two years, as recommended by opticians • p33
20 - 26 AUGUST 2010
PAGE 5
Spanish dream retirement crumbles by Jack Troughton RETIRED COUPLE Frank and Mavis Goodhall have watched a Spanish dream crumble after being banished from their comfortable home and forced to live in a caravan. Innocently snared in a legal Catch 22, they can only stare at the yellow wooden house now behind locked gates and chain link fencing on a ‘resort’ in the Marina Alta and watch the site fall into disrepair. Barred from their home for 18 months, Frank and Mavis have witnessed the resort’s owner Jane Lentz “do a runner” leaving residents at the mercy of two conflicting court orders. It means they cannot remove the wooden structure from the ‘Lentssons 50+ Resort’ at La Xara, claim valuable possessions still locked inside or live in the €65,000 home. Instead Frank and Mavis, who moved from Spain from Hertfordshire six years ago, are forced to live on the plot of land they own in Pego – but in a borrowed static caravan rather than the plush wooden dwelling they expected. They told RTN: “This whole fiasco has drained our finances, meaning we have nowhere to go. Our dream of a comfortable retirement has been a six year nightmare.” Lentssons SL imported ‘made to measure’ wooden homes from Finland and either built the homes or delivered the structures as kits. Frank and Mavis signed a contract – bearing the motto “The beginning of a long lasting relationship” - and paid a deposit for a home to be delivered to their Pego plot. “We paid a 30 percent deposit for a house to be put on our land but it never turned up,” said Mavis. Frank and Mavis “All we got was feeble excuses.”
Exclusive interview ITV commentator Peter Drury speaks exclusively to RTN and we find out who are Drury’s picks from England’s youthful pool talent? • p62
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Goodhall
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