The long running and much beleaguered Loro Parque group project to build a Siam Park Gran Canaria Water Park has been dealt a serious blow, many months after the company had warned that the investment project could no longer be maintained without movement forward, particularly in the face of the global pandemic. The Canary Islands Superior Court of Justice, our regional high court, (TSJC) have ruled to annul the Plan for Modernisation, Improvement and Increase of Competitiveness in the area of ​​El Veril, where for 7 years the project has tried to move forward, and which had been approved by the Government of the Canary Islands to authorise construction of the new water park in the southern tourism heartland of Maspalomas.

 

The TSJC considers that the plan could not be approved without a report on the availability of water resources to ensure that these existed in “sufficient” quantity to meet the new demands derived from the contested plan, which includes construction of a hotel, a restaurant and cafes.

Grupo Loro Parque have yet to respond to the judgement, but will no doubt be incredulous at this latest obstacle to their €100m plan originating more than 15 years ago, and supposed to have got the go ahead as far back as 2013/14 with the support of the Gran Canaria Water Board, the Cabildo de Gran Canaria, The Canary Islands Regional Government and a slew of other institutions on the premise of it being a tourism development project of significant interest, not only in terms of tourism offering, but also urban development, economic benefit, employment and a range of other positives, which now, once more, have all been called into question.

We will report more as responses are made public. Will this be the end of Siam Park Gran Canaria? They’ve proven most tenacious thus far, perhaps this is not yet the end of the road… only time will tell.  No one would blame them if they decided to pack up the project and go elsewhere, even after having spent millions of euros in developing the land, fighting, sometimes spurious, legal challenges and promoting what most seem to agree to be a very worthy project on what is otherwise a wasteland separating Playa del Ingles from the main GC1 motorway.