The San Bartolomé de Tirajana Town Hall Governing Board, this Thursday, have announced their long awaited approval of the urbanisation project for the waste land area known as El Veril, between the GC1 north-south highway and the entry point to the southern resort areas of Playa del Inglés and Maspalomas, where the construction of a new Siam Park Aqua Adventure attraction has been planned since at least 2013. This is a preliminary step to granting the final license to building the much anticipated tourist attraction, an initiative that has repeatedly stalled in the municipality over several years. The aim of the southern Town Council is, if everything moves in the right direction, for the works to break ground before the end of 2022.

 


 

The document, presented by the Consistory in a statement, initially approves three fundamental points. On the one hand, to agree on the establishment of the private execution framework for the urbanisable land at El Veril; second, a concerted management agreement and annexes, subjecting it to the public consultation process for one month; and, finally, the urbanisation project for the material execution of the planning determinations approved for said zone, which will be divided mainly into three plots: one for the park, another for a new hotel and a third in the municipal domain destined mainly for areas greenery and landscaping.

Councillor for Urban Planning, Samuel Henríquez declared the project to be “a strategic work for our tourist destination”

“One of the Department of Urban Planning’s objectives was to unblock [this project] and begin to take steps with the Siam Park, allowing us in four months to have been able to respond to the State hydraulic resource and today carry out this initial approval of the file”,  Henríquez added.

He continued “it is a strategic work for our tourist destination, as has been stated by both the Government of the Canary Islands and the Cabildo de Gran Canaria, because it represents a boost for the Playa del Inglés area, a boost for leisure and family tourism and will serve as a driving force for the rest of the investments and actions carried out in that area. Throughout these eight years there have been many missteps, but the public administration have to do our homework, which is about walking within the legalities to facilitate investments and generate legal guarantees for people who want to invest in San Bartolomé de Tirajana”.

“With the approval of this project we all win,” says the mayor, Concepción Narváez

The Town Planning councillor is confident that “before the summer we will be able to license the project and before the end of the year we could see the start of it, after more than eight years of paralysis, since the project reached the Town Council in the year 2015”. At the time the town hall was under the control of a previous administration, headed up by the PP/AV candidate Marco Aurelio Perez, whose governing group were suspected of obfuscation and sloth in the processing of the file, according to one of the several judges who have reviewed the case.

Current Mayor, Conchi Narváez concluded by saying “this step will give us a level of leisure offering that we need so much, at the heights of our Maspalomas Costa Canaria, a focus attraction for thousands of local, national and international visitors”.

Finally adding “the number of jobs that are going to be generated and the reactivation of the space where it is going to be developed is also positive. With the approval of this project we all win and I think it is a clear example of commitment by the current government group to employment and management”, within the municipality.