High hopes Nerja health centre will happen

NERJA Town Hall has modified the General Plan for Urban Development (PGOU) to allow the local health centre to go ahead.

More than eight years have passed since the agreement between the Junta de Andalucia and the town hall to build the health centre was first signed.

Now the town hall has changed the approved use of the land where it is due to be built from ‘education’ to ‘health’ purposes in the local PGOU.

The town hall had been attempting to convince the Junta de Andalucia to go ahead with the project with the land classified for education use, but eventually the mayor, Jose Alberto Armijo, had to take the proposal to change it to the local plenary meeting where it was approved by the opposition parties, PSOE and Izquierda Unida.

However, the mayor complains that the Junta is using the classification of the land as an excuse not to go ahead with the project. He pointed out that the town hall offered the health department up to five locations in 2008, after the first plot, near the roundabout which leads to Burriana Beach, was rejected the year before because there was danger of it flooding.

“The Junta de Andalucia authorized the construction of a health centre in Estepona on land classified for education” the mayor said, “but here, all we have had is problems”.

However, he hopes that the reclassification will finally allow the project to go ahead. The health department is due to pay the total amount for the project, after the town hall refused to pay the 50 per cent agreed initially when the project was proposed in 2003.

However, due to demands from the Junta, the town hall has already paid around €250,000 to prepare the plot, which is currently used as a free parking area.