News from Andalucia & Costa del Sol

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New Guadalhorce fire station launched

The Coín-based headquarters will serve 13 towns in the valley

By Oliver McIntyre

OFFICIALS last week inaugurated the new fire station in Coín, which replaces the existing station in the town and will serve 13 municipalities throughout the Guadalhorce valley with a combined population of 180,000.

"This new infrastructure, which forms part of the Málaga Province Fire Consortium, marks one more step toward our top-priority goal of reducing response times to less than 20 minutes" throughout the province, said Salvador Pendón, president of the Diputación de Málaga.

The station is strategically located in the Sierra Gorda urbanisation, with immediate access to Coín and good road connections to other Guadalhorce towns, said officials.

Sr Pendón, along with the head of the Junta de Andalucía's Government Administration office, Luis Pizarro, presided over the inauguration last Wednesday morning, which was also attended by Coín's mayor, Gabriel Clavijo, the president of the Fire Consortium, Cristóbal Guerrero, and other officials.  The ceremony started with a minute of silence in honour Pedro Palomeque, the consortium firefighter who a week earlier was killed in a traffic accident while en route to a fire in Álora. 

The new station, which will be staffed by the department's existing 17 firefighters, was built at a cost of 1.2 million euros by the Junta de Andalucía and the Diputación de Málaga on an 8,000-square-metre plot ceded by the town hall. 

SUMMER DRAGNET

‘Don't let criminals live a life in the sun', says Crimestoppers in new appeal

By Dave Jamieson

 FIFTEEN men with connections to the Costa del Sol are amongst those named this week as wanted criminals by the UK organisation Crimestoppers.  In a new summer appeal the crime-fighting charity is targeting British holidaymakers and residents to help track down fugitives believed to be on the run in Spain.

Allegations levelled at the most-wanted suspects include drugs smuggling and trafficking, currency counterfeiting, armed robberies and a number of murders. 

One of those named is Kevin Thomas Parle, who is wanted in connection with two particularly violent murders in Liverpool; Liam Kelly aged 16 was shot in 2004 as he tried to escape from two armed men, while the following year, Lucy Hargreaves, the mother of a two year old daughter, was shot, had petrol poured on her and was set on fire in her family home. 

Crimestoppers' Operation Captura is run jointly with the UK's Serious Organised Crime Agency, the British Embassy and the Spanish authorities.  Since its launch in October 2006 the campaign has scored remarkable results, nabbing 21 of the 40 wanted criminals featured in the appeals.

The public are being urged to help this summer with the slogan, "Don't let criminals live a life in the sun," and to visit the website crimestoppers-uk.org where pictures and descriptions of all the fugitives can be found in the Most Wanted section. 

Dame Denise Holt, Britain's Ambassador to Spain, said, "The public on the Spanish Costas, including British expats and tourists, have already given a fantastic response to Crimestoppers appeals.  Please keep it up, and let's make Spain a tough place to hide out for criminals."

Calls to the freephone Spanish telephone number 900 555 111 will be answered in the UK by Crimestoppers' call agents, while information can be sent online with a guarantee of anonymity using the Giving Information section of the Crimestoppers' website.

Summer saturation hits Costa phone network

Hundreds affected every day by lack of signal, failed calls and other glitches

By Dave Jamieson

IT HAS become as predictable a part of high summer on the Costa del Sol as jellyfish and sunburn.  The arrival of holidaymakers has once again saturated the mobile telephone networks along the coast of Málaga, with reports of no signal, failed calls and other errors now frustrating hundreds of users every day.

There are estimated to be 1.5 mobiles per head of population in each of Spain's provincial capitals and one per person outside capital cities.  Málaga is one of the five cities nationwide where mobile phone traffic has increased the most, so it is perhaps unsurprising that an influx of thousands of extra handsets in summer puts the system under strain.

However, with a total of 350 antennas recorded by the government's Telecommunications Department in Málaga, the city is seriously under-resourced, according to phone operators.  Redtel, a group representing Telefónica, Vodafone, Orange and Yoigo, says between 20 and 30 per cent more relay stations are required in order to provide adequate coverage and to eliminate chronic black spots such as the city centre and the industrial estates.

Problematic towns

Elsewhere in the province, Redtel reports problems in Alhaurín de la Torre, Alhaurín el Grande, Antequera,  Benalmádena, Estepona, Fuengirola, Marbella, Nerja, Rincón de la Victoria and Vélez-Málaga.  In these areas, the group says, up to 40 per cent more antennas are required.

Owners prevent court-ordered house demolition

Officials showed up to execute the order but had no permit to enter the property

By Dave Jamieson

THE owners of an illegal house in Cártama took action to prevent its demolition on Monday morning.  The town hall intended to raze the building on the final orders of a court in a legal battle which has already lasted 12 years.

Francisco Sánchez's 128-square-metre house sits on land in the Dehesa Alta park, which is a specially protected zone and therefore unsuitable for building.  When the municipal team arrived to execute the court-ordered teardown, they found the way onto the site barred by the owner and were forced to postpone the demolition.

Cártama's urbanisation councillor Jorge Gallardo said that legal action against the owner began in 1997 for an alleged offence against land laws, and in 1999 a court ordered the house's demolition.  "From then until 2006," he said, "the owners have appealed against the sentence."

In that year, a court confirmed that the demolition should take place, and in February 2008, another court ordered the town hall to proceed with the order, threatening that if it did not, it would be committing an offence of disobedience under the penal code.  The instruction was repeated in court last December, and five months ago, the town hall received an official order.

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