Operation Eyesore improves tourist beaches
By Sue Brown, 03 Apr 2006
Spanish Government officials are spending EUR 20M at the seaside this year buying up eyesore buildings and derelict plots to improve the scenery for millions of holidaymakers and new home buyers.
So far, in Operation Eyesore, they have purchased and demolished 63 structures along the country’s 10,000 kilometre coastline as part of a programme to return the seashore to its natural state, according to the Environment Ministry.
Beach bars, homes, walls, jetties and even a factory have been torn down under the Law of the Coasts that requires illegal or abandoned structures within a certain distance of the seaside to be demolished.
Jose Fernandez, the chief of the Ministry’s Coastal Department, said that a dozen of the demolitions had taken place in Almeria province, followed by nine in Murcia, six in A Coruna, and five in Girona. The rest occurred around the rest of Spain, including the Balearic and Canary Islands.
The official also stressed the success of the Government’s programme to buy up property along the country’s 10,000 kilometres of coast and that the Ministry had a budget of 20 million euros to make such purchases this year.
“There are 122 parcels of land which we’ve targeted and the aim is to acquire between 20 and 40 million square meters every year,”
The Law of the Coasts was passed in the 1980s after officials realized that unrestricted building during the tourism boom had turned much of the coast into an eyesore and was souring many foreign visitors on holidaying in Spain.
Spanish Property News