Tag: Costas. Coastal Authority

Latest Gran Canaria News, Views & Sunshine

Foundation Investigated for Alleged Mismanagement of Public Funds Meant for Care of Unaccompanied Migrant Minors

The 7th Investigative Court of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria has opened a preliminary investigation into the Social Response Foundation Siglo XXI and four of its directors. The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office in Las Palmas filed a complaint against them, alleging crimes that could include forgery of commercial documents, mismanagement, and embezzlement of public funds. The investigation aims to determine whether this nonprofit organisation, and its officials, could have misused public funds intended for the care of unaccompanied migrant minors, during the migration crisis of 2020 that was precipitated by the pandemic confinement on the islands, leading to a build up of arrivals having to be assessed and cared for by the Canary Islands Regional Government, using hotels left empty due to the lack of tourism. The estimated amount involved in the alleged misuse stands at around €12.5 million between 2020 and 2022 on Gran Canaria alone.

 

Canary Islands Expect Rain and Potential Storm Weather Next Week

The Canary Islands are preparing for a change in the weather next week, as a significant increase in cloud is expected bringing higher probability of rain. The effects of a powerful storm forming in the Atlantic Ocean are likely to extend to the Canary Islands as well as neighbouring Madeira and The Azores.

 

The Canary Guide #WeekendTips 2-4 June 2023

June is here and that means that summer is just around the corner. The Patron Saints’ festivities in honour of San Juan de Bautista and San Antonio de Padua are just getting started on Gran Canaria, and in Pueblo de Mogán the main Romería pilgrimage for San Antonio El Chico is this first Saturday of June, as well as the start of the build up to those in Arucas, Santa Brígida and Moya. This weekend also brings the biggest outlet fair shopping experience back to INFECAR and a collectables fair in Gáldar.
OPERATION KILO is this weekend, at all participating supermarkets, asking you to add a few non-perishable food items to the Food Bank collection boxes to help families in need.

Vox Enters Canarian Politics, Stage Right: Anti-Migrant, Anti-Feminist, Anti-Green, Anti-Autonomy, Anti-LGBT, Anti-Multiculturalism, Pro-Franco politics find a foothold on The Canary Islands

The Canary Islands were unable to avoid the rise of the far right on Sunday, unlike in 2019, writes Natalia G. Vargas in Canarias Ahora. Vox, which previously had no representation on the islands, managed to make its presence felt in several municipalities and councils this May 28. They also secured seats in the Canary Islands’ regional parliament, securing four deputies. “Defending what is ours, our own, and fighting against insecurity” were the slogans that underpinned Vox’s campaign in The Canary Islands, along with “family, employment, and freedom.” This rhetoric, coupled with an electoral program that was repeated across all local elections in Spain, proved sufficient. Dozens of cities and towns on the islands welcomed their first far right candidates of the modern democratic era into Canarian politics, with urban areas serving as their main strongholds.

La Alcaldesa Bueno Secures Incredible Majority in Mogán

Mogán, May 29, 2023 – The often controversial incumbent, O Bueno, La Alcaldesa, has achieved an unprecedented and resounding victory once more in Mogán. The candidate who switched her party’s name, for these elections, to “Juntos por Mogán”, a local ally of the regionalist conservatives “Coalición Canaria” (CC), will once again assume the role of mayor. Her party has clinched a rather noteworthy 17 out of the 21 seats in the Municipal Council of this popular tourism destination located on the sunny southwest of Gran Canaria.

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Coastal Authority postpones Anfi signing the nullified concession on Tauro beach, awaiting TSJC High Court conclusions

The “Costas”, Coastal Authority, Demarcation of Coasts Las Palmas, have postponed their planned final act in the recovery to the Spanish State of the controversial Tauro beach, which was scheduled for today with the planned signing over of the land, and the nullification of the concession awarded to Anfi Tauro, following an order from the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands (TSJC – Canary Islands High Court) who are looking into precautionary measures requested by Anfi Tauro, the company responsible for the artificial beach since 2015. The operation was to be a formal act between the Costas and Anfi Tauro, initially scheduled for May 12, in order to comply with the final 2020 cancellation of the concession and to sign the deed of reversion and delivery of the concession for the maritime public domain lands. The Costas will now wait for the Canary Islands high court to study and resolve the precautionary measures requested by the timeshare company, as they attempt to recover the beach, and for the exploitation of the cove to return to the State once the matter has been resolved.

 

Rafael Lopez Orive head of the Costas Image: ALEJANDRO RAMOS
Head of the Las Palmas Coastal Demarcation, Rafael López Orive, said on Tuesday that he would not be attending this event today, while waiting to hear the decisions of the TSJC. As the regional representative of this state institution, he had postponed the signing of the reversion of the concession until today, while awaiting the results of a detailed report on the condition of the sea floor, after Anfi and Santana Cazorla deposited 70,000 cubic meters of sand brought from the disputed territory of Western Sahara back in 2016. Anfi Tauro declined yesterday to make any further statements, referring only to the precautionary measures they have requested from the Regional High Courts.
The TSJC’s order comes after Anfi Tauro filed a contentious-administrative appeal against the office of the Demarcation of the Coasts in Las Palmas, on April 12, 2021, in which the Costas summoned the company to sign the act of reversal, to formally recognise the return of 11,200 square meters of maritime domain public land to the Spanish State. The concession was originally granted by Ministerial Order on October 1, 2015 to “regenerate Tauro beach and exploit seasonal services, hammocks and umbrellas”.  However controversy soon followed with the beach having been officially closed to the public since February 2016.
On appeal, Anfi Tauro claimed the necessity for an “urgent precautionary suspension” of the execution of the Costas intentions, but the TSJC has denied that request as it did not appreciate any reasons for such urgency. “Although it is intended to protect the same in the peremptory nature of the period indicated for the act of reversion to take place – set for May 12, 2021 -, the truth is that the interested party was notified of said act on April 12, 2021″ pointing out that the urgency was not claimed by the company until after they were summoned to the signing, though the order was well known prior to that.

Consequently, the court will process precautionary measures by ordinary means and based on article 131 of the Law of Contentious-Administrative Jurisdiction and the interested parties may not request any further measure again under the that article of law.  Anfi are either seeking a reversal of the decision or some form of compensation, as they claim to have already spent €2m on the unfinished reconditioning and “improvement” of the beach.
Once the reversion act has been signed, the right to exploitation on Tauro beach will return to the State, and its reopening to the public, after more than five years closed, will then be the responsibility of Mogán Town Council, who had previously requested the concession for seasonal services from the Costas. Mogán will then need to initiate the procedures to put into operation life guard surveillance and first aid services. Something the local mayor has since suggested may need to wait until the removal of a breakwater illegally placed on the shoreline, despite not being included in the Anfi license.
Until 2016 the beach was a pebbled cove, and a partially protected environment, onto which the Anfi Tauro group, working with Grupo Santana Cazorla, deposited 70,000 cubic meters of sand, extracted from the disputed territory of Western Sahara (in contravention of UN guidance on disputed territories) placing it onto the beach in preparation for exploitation and operation of seasonal services and other businesses that were to be installed at the site as part of a much bigger project.  The sand was recently discovered to be covering an outlet pipe from Anfi Tauro’s desalination plant which has been spilling brine under the sand the whole time.
Brine outlet from desalination plant on Tauro Beach, Gran Canaria
 
Shifting Sandcastles in the Sky: Spanish Supreme Court upholds the cancellation of the Tauro Beach coastal territorial plan on Gran Canaria

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