THE wrecking ball has started swinging in Marbella.
The first of a number of scheduled demolitions has begun with the knocking down of two illegal buildings in the town.
One, a building owned by businessman Avila Rojas, was built illegally on land designated as rural.
Rojas, who is involved in the huge Operation Malaya corruption scandal, is having to foot the estimated 100,000 euro bill.
He claims to have spent 2.7 million euros on the construction of the block of flats in Rio Real.
A second building in San Pedro de Alcantara, owned by a developer Provasi, is also due to be knocked down this week.
Mayor Angeles Munoz insisted that the demolitions showed how serious the town hall was in solving the issue of illegal construction in Marbella.
“Neither building has a licence or is included in the new town plan,” she said. “On top of that no buyers have bought in good faith and neither is inhabited.”
While it has been estimated that up to 40 per cent of the town could be illegal, in reality only around 500 buildings could be demolished.
Hello my name is Rafael,I am from Arriate, I think is a mistake to talk about Arriate like that, people from Arriate have voted for this mayor, and we know him and his team very well,we don,t want a golf course here,and I am sure that our mayor don,t want it, we have fighted against Los Merinos, eveybody in this village think like this, is impossible to built a golf course in Arriate, we don,t have enough water for it.
Please don,t write things without know what you are writting, don,t blame our village, we don,t want golf courses.
Rafael López
Arriate