August 2005 News

News Ariticles for the Costa del Sol (August 2005)

Welcome to the first edition of the Get Spain Costa del Sol News Page.

Forest fire destroys national park in Andalucia.

Over 5000 hectares of national park has been destroyed in the Sierra de Cazorla, Segura y Las Villas in the province of Jaen. The fires were started during a freak storm which produced lightning but no rain. Local residents and tourist had to be speedily evacuated as fire crews battled the inferno for three days. The storms were some of the worst to be seen over recent years and were responsible for causing some 21 fires although the majority were quickly extinguished or brought under control.

Three fire breaks were created and some 500 fire-fighters were deployed with the aid of 42 water carrying aircraft in order to beat back the flames. Luckily the fire-fighters were eventually helped by a slight change in the weather conditions and wind direction.

The area comprised mainly of pine trees and their underlying vegetation and the Andalucian Government has assured the affected municipalites that a plan is already being devised in order to address the recuperation of the scorched and destroyed areas.

Local authorities now have the power to help control street drinking

In a much praised move by the Junta de Andalucia they have now transferred the power to the local authorities to penalise the illegal sale of alcohol within many municipalities. The aim of this transfer of power is to try and tighten the controls for under age drinking and for drinking outside of the set time controls. It is hoped that the penalties will remove "street drinkers" and control out of control youths high on alcohol.

The province of Seville has granted the power to 27 municipalities, Jaen has granted 20, Malaga 17, Granada 10 and Cordoba 7.

Road accidents cause chaos on the A7

Firday 5th August saw a number of accidents on the A7 which caused traffic chaos to hundreds of residents and tourists. At around 7am 2 lorries had a collision on the A7 at km 268 resulting in the middle lane being blocked just as many locals were heading off to work. In another incident 2 lanes of the A7 in both directions at km 241 were blocked causing over 2 kms of tail backs. Later the same day 2 cars were involved in a collision in the San Pedro area putting more strain on an already heavy traffic situation. Also the same day a motorcycle accident near to the Costa del Sol hospital caused a traffic jam of 3 kms.

New airport for Antequera

Expecting to provide services for upto 500,000 travellers in it's first year, Antequera airport is due to eventually open for business in the year 2009. It is anticipated that over the years subsequent to opening, passenger numbers will increase to a staggering two million per year. The location of Antequera airport will be adjacent to the cross roads of the A92 and A45 close to the location of the new AVE high speed train station.

Antonio Banderas to film in Malaga

Born and bred in Malaga, Antonio Banderas will start filming his long awaitied second film as director in Malaga around 14th of November. The film entitled "El Camino de Los Ingelses" is based on a novel by the Malaga author Antonio Soler and is about life in Malaga during the civil war. Having already opened an acting school in Malaga recently, the cast will be made up of relatively unknown actors from Spain who will work alongside the established actors like Victoria Abril and Juan Diego. The film has been allocated a budget five and a half million euros which is nearly twice that of the usual budget for a Spanish production.

Malaga starts to impose restrictions on water usage

Some of the local councils within the Malaga province have started to restrict the use of water. These measures include not being able to fill up swimming pools using "tap water", and in some areas cutting the supply during the night. Residents in mountain areas of Ronda have were without water for three days. In total at the current time there are 11 municipalities that have some form of restriction on the supply of water.

Torremolinos restaurant is the venue for talks on Gibraltar

A wednesday night in a Torremolinos restaurant saw the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in Spain, (Bernardino Leon) and a minister from Gibraltar, (Peter Caruana) meet to discuss the agenda for furture meetings in which to debate the use of Gibraltar Airport and how it could be jointly operated, as well as other matters relating to the rock. Jose Pons was also at the meeting (the Director General for Foreign Policy in Europe) and he advised the press after the meeting that it was positive but there was still "a long road ahead". The meeting was set up ahead of the next ministerial meeting in the 3 way discussions on the future of Gibraltar.

Transfer of Water from Guadalhorce

From September a desalination plant serving Malaga situated at El Atabal is to get the salt water which is currently being housed at the resovior at Gudalhorce. It is as a result of a hard fought agreement that was eventually reached on 30th August 2005 between the water company (EMASA) and the Cuenca Mediterranea Andaluza (CMA). It has been suggested that the new supply will start on September 10th and the water that is produced will be combined with that from the reservoirs at Conde and Guadalteba.

Children evacuated as fire service acts quickly to restrict damage

A fire in the Rio Real Urbanisation in Marbella led to the evacuation of some 50 children from a nursery. Although the cause of the fire is till being investigated it is thought that it might have been started on purpose to clear some waste ground. Priase goes out to the local fire service who arrived at the scene promptly and stopped the fire spreading to any housing and restricting it to just 3 hectares.

Hotels for the disabled

A new style of hotels is being rolled out across Spain which are specifically constructed for disabled guests. One of the chains responsible for this over due style of accommodation is Confortel, which is owned by the ONCE blind organisation. A review of hotels that already exist on the Costa del Sol showed that 90 percent are not fully adapted for special needs guests and those with wheelchairs. The president of the PDF (Provincial Disabled Federation) claimed that the majority of hoteliers did not actually consider the regulations to be that important. More information on the Confortel hotel Fuengirola

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