Plans paused

Resurrected homes plans put on ice

AN Alicante court has agreed to a temporary injunction on old plans to build a 488-home urbanisation in Lliber.

It comes after the Compromis party asked for the suspension of a building permit and to pause any work, which currently involves finishing off connecting a water collector.

It describes the resurrection of 22-year-old plans as an 'aberration' which could see Lliber’s population go up by over a third.

Fight

“We are going to fight to defend our towns from speculators,” said Alicante’s Compromis spokesman, Gerard Fullana. “We don't want to return to the old days that turned the Marina Alta into one of the lowest income earning areas of the Valencia region.”

Lliber's development plan (PAI) goes back to 2001 and provides for the construction of the urbanisation on the Muntanya Llarga slope which borders the

By Alex Trelinski

Serra de Ferrer and Bernia -both protected landscape areas. Compromis argues the old PAI simply does not equate with a different era.

It insists the plan needs to be examined differently and claims water supplies for all of the Valle del Pop municipalities would be endangered by the project. It adds it will have a ‘negative impact on the local environment and heritage’.

THREATENED: Fears for fauna

No damage to dunes!

DENIA town hall has insisted 24 apartments being built at Les Marines beach will not damage the local ecosystem. It comes after locals claimed that the sand dunes were threatened along with other local flora and fauna from the scheme.

Construction has started on one of the few remaining plots at Les Marines with the development granted a permit in 2017.

Denia councillor, Maria Josep Ripoll, said concerns over environmental damage were unfounded. She told the Levante newspaper the new homes will be built away from the beach and 'obviously, the dunes are not touched'.

She added the development had been authorised by the Costas authority since it did not encroach on maritime land. Besides the dunes, the area is home to unique vegetation like coastal scrubs and provides shelter to protected birds like the Kentish Plover.

Expensive plonk

TWO people who stole vintage wines worth €1.6 million from a Michelin-starred restaurant have been jailed. Caceres Provincial Court has sentenced former Mexican beauty queen, Priscilla Guevara, to four years and her Dutch-Romanian boyfriend, Constantin Dumitru, to fourand-a-half years. They've also been landed with a bill of over €750,000 as com- pensation to the Atrio restaurant's insurer.

The star attraction of the 45 bottle haul was a 1806 bottle of Chateau d'Yquem worth over €300,000, but none of the wines have been recovered. The couple were arrested trying to cross into Croatia from Montenegro following extensive cooperation between Spanish cops and police across Europe.

A campaigning, community newspaper, the Olive Press represents the huge expatriate community in Spain with an estimated readership, including the websites, of more than two million people a month.

Voted top expat paper in Spain OPINION

Crypto scam

THE famous adage suggested northern Europeans too often ‘left their brains at the airport’ before being turned over by the numerous timeshare scams in Spain.

And just as we spent over a decade warning readers to watch out for the timeshare crooks, we are once again telling them not to be taken in by the latest round of ‘big return’ investments.

The Globix cryptocurrency platform was sadly one of many suspect schemes that promised the earth, but in the end could not deliver.

Many of the victims of Globix we spoke to were lured in by seemingly easy money and an endless stream of winning trades.

But, like all investments, speak to experts, research the background of the organisers and do your due diligence. Remember: If it looks too good to be true, it probably is too good to be true.

Splashing the cash

HOW can you tell when an election is coming in Spain?

Simple - the roads get repaired, museums are launched and rubbish gets cleaned up.

Politicians up for re-election have long saved their cash up over the four-year cycle to splash it out now in exchange for votes in the May 28 local and regional elections. In its broadest interpretation, this could be viewed as a form of corruption, perhaps unfairly so.

But two stories in today’s paper show that corruption remains at the very heart of much of Spanish political life. It might seem shocking that former minister Jorge Fernandez faces 15 years in prison for spying on a colleague, while Juan Fuentes, a member of Congress, is being investigated for demanding kick-backs.

But actually, after probing crime and corruption for 17 years, we find it no surprise at all.

For the Olive Press team (and long-time residents of Spain) it’s just a case of ‘same old, same old’. It is time for voters to remember to punish the crooks at the polls. Not be so easily schmoozed by a new series of white lines or a shiny new community centre.

PUBLISHER / EDITOR

Jon Clarke, jon@theolivepress.es

Dilip Kuner dilip@theolivepress.es

Anthony Piovesan anthony@theolivepress.es

Jo Chipchase jo@theolivepress.es

John Culatto

ADMIN Sandra Aviles Diaz (+34) 951 273 575 admin@ theolivepress.es