The Spanish Environment Minister, Elena Espinosa, has spoken out for the second time in a week about the chiringuitos beach restaurants. Espinosa says that the new ruling to remove any such restaurants from the sand will go ahead in Andalucía which has over 800 chiringuitos , with over a half of these being located in the Costa del Sol. The new rulings will mean that all chiringuitos will need to be moved away from the beach and be a maximum of 150sq metres in size, with a minimum of 200 metres between each one.
Malaga officials claim that the new law will have a major impact on Costa del Sol tourism, where the beach restaurants are a huge attraction for holiday makers looking to enjoy the sun by the coast.

The structure of a planned 4 star hotel near the Costa del Sol hospital is set to be demolished after it’s license was revoked in 2004 after initially being awarded planning permission by Marbella Town Hall in 2003.
A family firm headed by José Ávila Rojas planned to develop one of the areas finest hotels however following the introduction of the new PGOU the licenses was removed as the area should have been protected for park land and gardens. The Town Hall however appear to be reluctant to demolish the building over fears that the builders may claim compensation.

The Spanish government will invest €16million in two stretches of road that connect to the Costa del Sol. The first will involve a new connection being built between Malaga and the A-92 via Campillos. The second project will see vast improvements to the existing stretch  on the A-365 at  La Roda de Andalucia-Sierra de Yeguas and Sierra de Yeguas-Campillos. Wider lanes and a hard shoulder will allow vehicles to travel on the A365 at 80kmph. The work is due to start this week.

The first signs of progress of the new Malaga metro could be seen yesterday when an initial load of rail tracks arrived at Malaga port.
The tracks will be used as part of the overground section of the metro that will stretch for 3kms and include five stations.

Mijas town hall has warned British holiday makers to avoid unlicensed taxis which may be dangerous or even uninsured. Taxi drivers in Mijas have been complaining for some time about the rouge drivers who are undercutting their prices as they don’t have the same costs to cover that the legal drivers face.

Mijas’s councillor for transport, Encarna Daunis, assured local taxi drivers that the town hall is committed to clamping down on the illegal drivers “The pirate taxis damage the professional cab drivers as well as passengers, because unlike the official taxis, the pirate services offer to protection or guarantees to the customer. The drivers are not subject to the same medical and driving tests, and their vehicles do not have to meet the same service and maintenance requirements.”

British expats living in the Costa del Sol have handed a dossier to No.10 highlighting what they believe to be property abuses in Spain. Expats are hoping that Gordon Brown will intercede on their behalf with Spanish PM  Rodríguez Zapatero.

The dossier documents numerous cases of British citizens losing money on investment properties as a result of law abuses by regional governments over planning permission.

So far there has been no reaction from No.10 but expats are hopeful that Brown will raise there concerns with Zapatero.

With the clamp coming down heavily on illegal properties in the Costa del Sol it’s a stark reminder to anyone looking to buy a holiday home in Spain.
One victim, Mike Kerr from Knaphill, is fighting to get back a £200,000 deposit he paid on two luxury apartments in the Marbella Vista Golf resort. The properties face being demolished after the builder breached planning permissions and there is no guarantee that any investors will receive any of the funds back.

Ryanair have announced that they will reduce the number of flights they operate between Dublin Airport in Ireland and Malaga Airport in Spain. The news comes following a decision by the Irish government to charge a new tax of €10 per passenger. The exact reduction is still to be confirmed but will not occur until July when Ryanair will move one fifth of their Dublin based planes to other airports.

Two would-be burglars fled from a house in Alhaurín el Grande after being scared off by the homes owners and a couple that were with them. The incident happened last Wednesday in the Camino Borrajo area of the town when the two men attempted to rob the houses cleaner before being scared off by the occupants.  The Guardia Civil has launched an investigation into the incident.

A woman in Malaga has complained to the ‘Servicio de Consumo’ association after shoes she brought from a Malaga shop gave her nasty rash. The shoes have been taken off the shelves and sent to Madrid for analysis. In a similar incident 190 pairs of shoes were recently seized in Benalmadena after 63 pairs were found to contain dimethyl fumarate. Dimethyl fumarate prevents mould forming and is used as a fungicide. It can cause extreme allergic reactions when it comes in contact with the skin.