DATELINE RONDA TUESDAY MAY 19, 2009

JUNE START FOR EROSKI COMMERCIAL CENTRE
By David Eade

The Eroski supermarket group will start on its long awaited commercial centre in Ronda in June. When completed it will be its largest in Andalucía.

Mayor Antonio Marín Lara has confirmed that work will begin at 10.00 on Monday June 8. The first action will be to demolish the municipal sports complex that currently sits on the site. This and the subsequent construction works are expected to take two years to complete. Marín Lara added that the construction company – Grupo Ruiz Jurado – had also promised to remove the former fair ground pavilions which are in a poor state and are located on adjacent ground.

The old soccer stadium that forms part of the sports complex will be given a formal farewell. It has been in operation for 40 years and a game between Ronda and a Malaga representative side will be staged between June 1 and 7. Ronda’s soccer team and the other sporting activities that in the past have been held at the old stadium will now move to the new Ciudad Deportiva.

The arrival of Eroski in the town of the Tajo has been a tortuous affair. It was 10 years ago that the supermarket group first announced that it intended to create a commercial centre in Ronda put its bid has been plagued by planning issues. The company’s decision to purchase the sports complex finally opened the door for the scheme to proceed. However the small and medium sized traders in Ronda’s traditional shopping centre are far from happy fearing the new Eroski complex will ruin their livelihoods.

OLD COURT HOUSE TO BE SEMANA SANTA MUSEUM

The former court house that has recently been employed as the office for the new local development plan (PGOU) will become the future Semana Santa museum.

Deputy mayor Francisco Cañestro along with the councillor for Fiestas, Antonio Palma, announced the move. Cañestro stated that the building in the calle Armiñán – in the heart of the historic quarter – would be an ideal museum space and given its location would be assured of many visitors.

The museum will occupy over 400 square metres on the lower floor and above will be the town planning office. The 750,000 euros required to convert the building will come from State funds as part of the Zapatero economic crisis scheme. The project has been under discussion for 15 years and the museum will finally have a permanent home.


CHAMBER MUSIC
The prestigious Camerata de Madrid will give a concert at the Convento Santo Domingo in Ronda at 20.00 on Saturday May 23. The event is sponsored by Unicaja and the chamber orchestra is making a tour of the province which ends on Sunday. Also on Thursday May 21 at 21.00 at the same venue the chamber orchestra of the Hamburg Symphony are performing a concert of the works of Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Paganini and Strauss.

CHEERS SCHU
On May 13 and 14 the seven times Formula 1 World Champion Michael Schumacher was at the Ascari race track in Ronda. He visited the circuit at the invitation of the drinks company Bacardi along with 50 guests as part of its “Beber Responsablemente – Drink responsibly” campaign. Schumacher was impressed by the facilities at Ascari which he described at “very special” and “unique”.

7,000 PARTICIPANTS
This year’s 101 km race in Ronda attracted over 7,000 entrants – 2,431 runners, 3,376 mountain bikers and 575 dual competitors. It was the 13 th edition of the now famous event which is organised by Spanish Legion as part of its anti-drugs campaign. Over 40,000 oranges, 35,000 bananas, 20,200 litres of water and 13,500 litres of special drinks were laid on for the contestants. In addition 25,000 people are said to have visited Ronda to watch the event.

ROAD INVESTMENT
Over the year 2008 - 2009 the municipalities of Benaoján and Genalguacil will have received 2.6 million euros in investment for road and infrastructure projects. The Málaga deputy for local development and rural roads has visited the two areas to see for herself what was needed and to supervise the works programme. The monies are virtually equally split between the two zones.

PICASSO VISIT
Unicaja is staging its Arco ’09 exhibition in Ronda till June 13. On display will be works of art that the bank acquired at February’s international contemporary art fair in Madrid. Amongst the exhibits will be a piece by Picasso (see above) and others by Andalucía artists. The exhibition is open from 12.00 -14.00 & 18.00 - 20.00 Monday to Friday plus 12.00 – 14.00 on Saturday at the Sala deExposiciones de la Fundación Unicaja in the Calle Pedro Romero, 2.

HAM FEST
El Circulo de Artistas in Ronda will host on Sunday May 24 at noon the VII Concurso de Cortadores de Jámon. The event will be in the hands of the Corbacho family who have won many national prizes for their ham cutting skills. The purpose of the competition is to encourage, develop and recognise the professional methods of cutting the celebrated jámon Serrano.

COUNCILLOR GONE
Ronda’s PSOE councillor for finance and tourism – and a former mayor – Isabel Aguilera has resigned. She is taking over a post with the regional government at the ministry of agriculture where Aguilera will be in charge of sustainable development in rural areas. This is the fourth resignation from the council and will require another reorganisation of the ruling Partido Andalucista – PSOE coalition.

DATELINE RONDA TUESDAY APRIL 14, 2009

TWO ARRESTED OVER BIZARRE TAJO DEATH
By David Eade

The official statement is hard to believe but the National Police in Ronda have arrested a 63-year-old woman and her 36-year-old son after his girlfriend fell to her death in Ronda’s Tajo gorge and they did nothing to help her.

The tragedy occurred in the middle of last October but now the police have charged the pair with not helping the woman or seeking help from the emergency services.

The woman fell to her death from the balcony of a property in which she had lived with her boyfriend for several months overlooking the Tajo gorge. According to her partner at around 2.30 in the morning they had a row and she disappeared from the apartment. He heard a bang from the balcony door and went out to find her bag, her shoes and mobile phone.

It is at this point that the story changes from a tragedy to the bizarre. The boyfriend immediately phoned his mother to tell her what happened. She told him to be calm, to go to bed and sleep. Both seem totally unconcerned about what had happened to the girlfriend. In the morning his mother arrived, cleaned his house, looked down from the windows over the Tajo and almost certainly saw the body of the girlfriend.

They then went shopping and it was only afterwards that they called at the police station to report what had happened. The emergency services then raced to the scene and although they found the girl she had died around eight hours before help was summoned.

ARRIATE BY-PASS TO TAKE 4,000 VEHICLES


The village of Arriate is the only municipality in the Serranía de Ronda to show strong growth in recent years whilst all the others are suffering from depopulation. For this it can largely thank its closeness to the town of Ronda to which it has become almost a suburb.


However the main street of Arriate is still that of a small village with barely room for two cars to pass and in one section vehicles can only travel in one direction at a time. Hence the announcement that the new by-pass will shortly be started will bring relief to a population that sees over 4,000 vehicles pass their doors each day.


The Andalucía minister of public works, Luis García Garrido, has inaugurated the start of the works that will take traffic from Setenil de las Bodegas to Ronda by by-passing Arriate. The sum of 5.3 million euros has been assigned to the project that should take 18 months to complete. It will also create 93 jobs, over half of them directly.


The by-pass will connect the existing roads, the MA-7403 (Arriate – Puerto del Monte – Setenil) and the A-367 (Ardales – Ronda). It will run to the east of Arriate and cover six kilometres. Currently large lorries cannot negotiate the centre of Arriate and have to take a 19 kilometre diversion via Cuevas del Becerro but they will be saved that journey once the by-pass is operational. It will be a dual carriageway and the rural roads connecting with it will also be upgraded.


The new road is all part of the Andalucía road plan 2004-2013 (Mas Cerca) that also includes the new road connecting Ronda with Ardales that opened on Monday. The minister stressed the Arriate by-pass would connect the Sierras de Málaga and Cádiz with the coast allowing for increased economic activity between the zones. After the by-pass has been completed the next major infrastructure project in the area will be the laying of the high-speed AVE train line between Antequera and Ronda.


LOW TAKINGS
Ronda received around the same level of visitors over the Easter holidays as previous years with hotel and rural houses said to have a 90 per cent occupancy level. However the incomes of hotels, bars and restaurants are down as visitors have spent markedly less due to the effects of the economic recession. Visitors have been looking for bargain prices for stays and food.


NO BIRTHS
The fears over the aging populations in the Serrania de Ronda have been reinforced after four villages reported no births in 2007. The municipalities of Benalauría, Júcar, Parauta and Pujerra are smaller and older as a result as there have been deaths and people moving out to seek work elsewhere. Also suffering are Alpandeire with one birth and Jubrique and Cartajima that recorded two.


DOLE TOLL
The March total of unemployed in Ronda has risen by 76 people bringing the total to 3,913 compared with 2,726 in the same month last year. The construction industry is still the worst affected although the recession has also been felt in the hotel and restaurant trade plus amongst local businesses. Women account for the highest total with 2,012 compared with 1,901 men.


COURT DATE
The Ronda court has set a date in May for the municipal secretary – accountant of Cuevas del Becerro to appear in the case in that he is alleged to have taken 340,000 euros of town hall funds. He has been in the post for 15 years and is said to have used blank cheques signed by the mayor and his deputy for his own use.


BACTERIA ATTACK
The regional government’s environment ministry has employed bacteria to destroy the 28 tonnes of diesel that spilled from a Repsol tanker that recently crashed in to a stream on the Cuevas del Becerro to Setenil road. There were fears that the oil could have caused major environmental damage by seeping into the Peñarrubia reservoir but the bacteria has broken down the hydrocarbon.


CHURCH RESTORED
The work to restore the ancient Santa Cecilia church in Ronda will be completed on April 29. Over 600,000 euros has been spent on the work to the church locally known as ‘Los Descalzos’ – the shoeless after the religious community that served there. The restoration has been completed in two phases starting in 2007 and includes the former Convento Trinitario de Los Descalzos.


FARM MARQUEE
Following the decision of Ronda’s mayor to postpone this year’s Real Feria de Mayo the town hall’s agriculture delegation says a marquee dedicated to the sector will be set up instead in the San Francisco quarter for farmers to use. The May Fair is the oldest in Andalucía but the mayor insists the 200,000 euros designated for the event will be spent on the unemployed instead.


ROAD OPEN
The Ronda to Málaga journey has just got shorter after the new stretch of the A-367 was opened on Monday. The new road between the Venta del Córdobes and Ardales has cost 12 million euros and has been funded by the regional government. It covers seven kilometres and apart from improving road safety should reduce travel times between Ronda and Málaga to one hour.

DATELINE RONDA TUESDAY APRIL 7, 2009

RONDA CANCELS ITS MAY FAIR BECAUSE OF RECESSION
By David Eade

A major shock has been handed out to the people of Ronda and the wider Serranía. The mayor, Antonio Marín, has stated that this year’s Real Feria de Mayo has been cancelled because of the recession. His administration formed by a coalition of Partido Andalucista and PSOE councillors will instead spend more than 300,000 euros on its economic crisis plan.

The Real Feria de Mayo was first held in 1487 and was given its “royal” prefix by the Reyes Católicos. The fair is the oldest agricultural event of its kind in Andalucía and is of major economic importance to the farming sector.

None-the-less Antonio Marín believes that in the present circumstances the main priority is to create jobs and help disadvantaged families. It is intended to contract 106 workers between May and July in addition to the 200 families that exist in Ronda who are living in abject poverty and need town hall help. The jobs will be created in the service sector as gardeners, painters, bricklayers and cleaners amongst both men and women.

Not surprisingly the decision to cancel the fair has provoked an angry reaction. The spokesperson for the opposition Partido Popular, María Paz Fernández, blasted: “The benefits of the Feria de Mayo are incalculable. This measure demonstrates the lack of capability of the mayor. We are indignant!”

The spokesperson for the Izquierda Unida, Rafael Ruiz, stated that whilst his party agreed with the plans to help the jobless and needy families the measure had not been discussed with the opposition parties. He suggested that the mayor consider the various proposals tabled by the IU which would allow the municipality to save money.

Salvador, a Ronda resident, was bewildered by the mayor’s decision. He told Ronda News: “The town hall makes money from the fair, so why cancel it?”

ARRIATE DENIES IT HAS PLANS FOR A GOLF COURSE

The municipality of Arriate is close to Ronda, indeed its boundaries are completely surrounded by the Serranía’s leading player. This goes a long way to explaining why Arriate is the only village in the Serranía to buck the trend of depopulation as it is very much a ‘suburb’ of fast growing Ronda.

Arriate has a very strong left-wing tradition and its solid Izquierda Unida administration has announced plans for its new local development plan (PGOU). It wants to have 570,000 square metres of land declared as for urban use which would allow the construction of 1,000 homes – basically doubling the size of the existing village.

However Arriate is also one of those communities that would be badly affected by the development of the controversial Los Merinos golf course. This proposed major golf, urban and luxury hotel complex is within the boundaries of Ronda but lies very close to Cuevas del Becerro. The residents of the entire area along with ecologists opposed Los Merinos because they say it would draw on the water aquifers on which their communities and agriculture relies – and have done for generations.

Eyebrows have therefore been raised when Ecologistas en Acción declared that it was the intention of Arriate town hall to include land for a golf development within its new PGOU. They allege that whilst the mayor Bernardino Gaona has joined the protests against Los Merinos, as well as another golf course at Parchite, his administration is planning for such a project in Arriate although no specific land has been allocated.

This has led to angry denials from the town hall. The first deputy mayor, Salvador Cabrera, dismissed the claims stating: “In Arriate we are not going to construct a golf course.” He pointed out that the municipality only covered nine kilometres and such a development “is not our intention.”

The ecologists have also dammed the plans for 1,000 homes as being “excessive” but Cabrera countered that they were only bringing the document in to line with the regional government’s requirements. The same applied to the location of the long awaited sewage plant which the Andalucía authority said has to be close to a river.

The deputy mayor says that only five allegations against the draft PGOU had been made and one of those was from the ecologists. He has invited the Ecologistas en Acción spokesperson, Alejandro Moreno, to participate with the town hall in preparing the PGOU document so that the fears over the golf course and other issues can be laid to rest.

WE SPEAK YOUR LANGUAGE
Ronda is one of the most important tourist centres in Andalucía and the most visited in the province of Málaga. Now the town of the Tajo is better equipped than ever to greet and help its visitors from around the globe.

As of Monday a new visitors' centre has been opened in the town. The staff are able to speak to visitors in six languages – these cover the nationalities that most frequency visit the town. Apart from Spanish the staff can speak English, French and German as well as the languages of the Nordic countries.

The aim of the office, which will be open seven days a week, is not only to boost tourism to Ronda but also the wider Serranía area. It is being provided by the regional government but is also backed by Ronda’s town hall that has allocated the premises to be found in the calle Espíritu Santo in the San Francisco quarter close to the old walls. The municipal tourist office will continue to operate close to the bullring.

RADAR TRAP
The traffic authority has scheduled another of its radar speed traps for the A-397 San Pedro to Ronda road at km 7. This dangerous road has more black spots than any other in the province of Málaga. It sees a number of deaths each year, the majority from motorcyclists, and it is hoped that the radar trap will cause motorists and bikers to drive slower and more safely.

BIG DEBT
According to the Ministerio de Economía y Hacienda Ronda has the fourth largest debt in the province of Málaga. The figure stands at 37.5 million euros, an average of 1,026 euros per resident. Councillor Isabel Aguilera has stated that the amount is one that the town hall can manage.

LESS FISH
A study carried out by the Fundación Nueva Cultura de Agua financed by the Obra Social Caja Madrid has revealed a drop in the density of fish in the Genal river. However all the fish found are native to the waters. The majority of Spanish rivers have been invaded by foreign species. Five fish were found but not the Lamprey which historically has been associated with the Genal.