ARCHIVED - Murcia and Spanish news round-up week ending 22nd September 2017

Cartagena conquered successfully by the Romans but media interest remains firmly focused on the Catalan independence referendum

The summer ended on Friday at precisely 22.02, shortly after Cartagena was conquered by the Romans following a fierce pitched battle.

Unfortunately, hothead Hannibal had taken most of the Carthaginian army off to attack Rome and was unexpectedly detained by deep snow in the Alps, leaving the city virtually defenceless as the Romans took advantage of his absence to invade. In spite of a good show by the remains of the Carthaginian army, superior Roman numbers, impressive battle formations and heavy weapons overcame the native tribes and Carthaginian stragglers, with Roman supremacy confirmed shortly after nightfall. From now on, Latin must be spoken in the city and a major building programme begin to bring the leisure facilities up to expected Roman standards. Plans for the new Roman Theatre and thermal baths are to be submitted immediately.

Meanwhile the attention of residents has been focused on the weather, with forecasters expecting warmer weather and late autumn rainfall over the next three months, and have also reported that the summer of 2017 was the sixth warmest on record in Murcia: an absolute maximum of 41.8 degrees in Archena in one of the hottest Costa Cálida summers since records were first kept in 1941, but at the same time the wettest for seven years!

But of course the start of a new season does not mean an abrupt break from the old one, and in Murcia this week the news has been dominated by the ongoing protests over the way in which the arrival of AVE high-speed rail services in the regional capital is being handled. Over the last ten days the campaign against the temporary overground tracks which are proposed while a tunnel is built has enjoyed an exponential increase in the amount of support received, and in the amount of exposure given in the regional and national press, and last Saturday a huge crowd gathered in the city centre, angry that the right to protest on the railway line had been denied: it is estimated that as many as 10,000 people took part.

On Tuesday there was more anger as a planned demonstration at the level crossing in Santiago el Mayor was not permitted, and instead protesters marched through the south of the city causing considerable disruption to traffic. The following evening, as indignation over the “Murcia Wall” spread to the whole of the city, the protests reached the Gran Vía in the centre, and in a gesture which many will see as unacceptable a “human wall” was formed outside the home of Mayor José Ballesta.

Sr Ballesta contacted the Ministry of Development with a request that alternative approaches to the arrival of the AVE in Murcia be considered, and although this is difficult to achieve so late in the day the  Mayor and the national government are aware that protestors are disinterested in promises, and are not prepared for the overground tracks to create a "divided city".

Meanwhile, the good news continued to flow in at San Javier airport, this time with the confirmation that although Ryanair announced on Monday that it is cancelling some 2,000 flights between 21^st September and 31^st October, Murcia-San Javier airport is not affected. In addition, as things stand at present only one ingoing and one outgoing flight at Alicante-Elche are on the cancellations list.

More tourism news

A load of rubbish? Excellent news for the Feria de Lorca, then, as it meant more visitors last weekend to the annual fair, and there is optimism that even more litter will be left by huge crowds over the next three days! Bring it on say Lorca council: more litter means more people enjoying the feria!

Aguilas continues to decorate the staircases of the old town centre with colourful modern artworks: the Escalart project now includes nine of the stepped thoroughfares of Águilas.

Totana restores 18^th–century water fountain to working order: the Fuente de San Pedro stands at the foot of the Ollerías aqueduct in Totana, which dates from 1753.

Lorca Town Hall aims to restore the church of San Juan: the church in the higher district of Lorca was gutted during the Spanish Civil War but Lorca plans to spend 1.5 million euros on a restoration project.

Cabo de Palos lighthouse hotel plans scuppered by the Murcia parliament: after months of protests it appears that the residents of Cabo de Palos have won their battle to “save” the iconic lighthouse from falling into private hands, with the opposition parties in the regional parliament having joined forces to pass a proposal that the building should house a visitors centre with displays concerning the marine reserves of Spain.

Environmental news

Mixed news for worried Mayors in Murcia as water reserves continue to decrease: the reservoirs of the Segura basin, which supply 79 municipalities in Murcia, Alicante and Albacete, are currently holding under 16 per cent of their capacity, and in the face of concerns expressed by numerous Town Halls the water authorities are only able to guarantee supplies for the next three months.

This reflects the fact that Murcia and the Segura basin is accustomed to using more water than is stored in their reservoirs, a situation which is referred to as an “inherent deficit”, but what is frustrating is that when it does rain so little of the water is actually channelled into storage tanks or reservoirs. Last winter was the second wettest on record in Murcia and this was the wettest summer for seven years, and yet the water reserves barely rose as it appears to be impossible to collect and store the water.

It is therefore necessary to seek alternative sources, and at present the desalination plants in Alicante, San Pedro del Pinatar, Águilas and Valdelentisco are functioning at full capacity as the authorities work to meet the immediate needs of the 2.5 million residents of the Segura basin.

Hopes persist that the Barbary sheep may be allowed to survive in Sierra Espuña: the thrill of an unexpected (although usually brief) encounter with one of the splendid horned beasts is not easily forgotten, and it may yet remain a possibility after the regional parliament voted to request that the species be removed from Spain’s list of exotic invasive species.

Residents of Murcia outlying districts complain about tiger mosquitos in the streets: the August rain in Murcia has brought out tiger mosquitos in Puente Tocinos and Beniaján, where numerous complaints are apparently being made.

Murcia leads Spanish table grape production: 185,000 tons of Murcia table grapes are produced in the Costa Cálida every year, more than in any other region of Spain.

Aemet predicts higher temperatures and delayed rain this autumn in Murcia: October and November are expected to be drier than usual while December is expected to be relatively wet.

Church of Santo Cristo in Cieza saved from wild fire: there was relief in Cieza on Monday when a wild fire which broke out just outside the town was halted in its tracks by firefighters just 50 metres from the small church or chapel of Santo Cristo del Consuelo, which is inextricably linked to the arrival of the figure of the Cristo del Consuelo in the town in 1606.

Fiestas and feminism: apparently an explosive mixture!

Santomera axes Fiestas Queens due to alleged lack of interest: the Town Hall says it is hard these days to find girls and young women who are interested in what in the past was considered to be a title carrying great prestige, but some locals suspect feminist ideology is being forced upon the annual fiestas in honour of the Virgen del Rosario.

Fuente Librilla fiestas in Mula accused of male chauvinism: sensitive women’s rights campaigners offended by the wording used by an all-female organizing committee.

Other items in the Murcia news this week

Murcia to ban animal circus acts: the new law also limits the number of cats and dogs in any one home in Murcia to five, but exceptions to the circus animal ban include horses and dogs. Live pigeon shooting is also to be banned in Murcia by the terms of the legislation passed in the regional parliament on Tuesday.

2,000 items of stolen jewellery recovered from mountainside shelter in Cieza: the investigation in to a stick-up and robbery at a jewellery shop in Pino Montano in the province of Sevilla has resulted in the surprising arrest of a 28-year-old man of South American origin at the small hut where he was living while temporarily working as a shepherd in the municipality of Cieza.

Cartagena Mayoress begins 6 weeks of maternity leave: Congratulations to Ana Belén Castejón after she gave birth to her second child on Sunday, but it will be difficult for the 38-year-old Mayoress to forget work completely as the happy event comes so soon after the widening of the rift within the local government between the PSOE and MC parties.

Although the corridors of the town hall have been reportedly calmer than during the past month, the undercurrents are still tingling.

Murcia makes progress towards altering Francoist street names at last: street names in the municipality are to be altered in order to remove references to armed forces officers who served between the start of the Civil War in 1936 and the adoption of the democratic Constitution in 1978, but the process by which this will be achieved is not yet complete.

Torre Pacheco in period costume to celebrate the 150^th anniversary of the Plaza del Ayuntamiento: the events included the burial of a time capsule which is to be opened in 50 years’ time on the 200^th anniversary.

Canine cops hailed as great success in Torre Pacheco: the new recruits have already notched up their first successes in the fight against crime in the municipality, sniffing out drugs in various locations in Torre Pacheco and Roldán.

Man arrested in connection with a dozen robberies from Mazarrón shops: the 48-year-old threatened a shop assistant and a customer in one of the most recent incidents, and has been arrested on more than 20 occasions in the past.

Property news in Murcia and Spain

Murcia property prices drop slightly while the national index rises by 1.6 per cent: the data produced by the Ministry of Fomento based on official valuations continue to suggest that moderate increases are the order of the day in the country as whole, despite there still being considerable variation among the trends identified in Spain’s 17 regions. The Ministry has now reported average price rises during each of the last nine quarters.

In Murcia, though, the figures have been more or less steady for over three years, having hovered between 970 and 1,000 euros per square metre since early 2014, and the latest data show a decrease of 1.3 per cent over the last twelve months following a minimal drop of just 0.2 per cent during the second quarter of this year.

Unsold property backlog decreasing in Spain but the data are difficult to interpret: there has been recent speculation that a sharp increase in the number of new properties being built in Spain could be just around the corner, but consultancy firm RR de Acuña y Asociados points out that an element of caution needs to be introduced into these optimistic predictions, if the data available are anything to go by.

It is difficult to read into the statistics concerning completed but unsold properties in Spain for various reasons, although on the face of it the situation is improving. In 2010 the 1.7 million empty homes falling into this category were a millstone around the neck of the market, and now the total has dropped to 1.36 million, indicating that inroads are being made into unsold stock.

However, this also indicates that much of the unsold stock is now 7 years older; hard to tell whether this is good or bad news!

Notaries report minimal decrease in average sale price of Spanish property: for a couple of months now almost all of the statistical reports regarding the state of the Spanish property market have provided positive news, but on Monday the latest monthly report published by the country’s notaries offered a reminder of the dangers of over-optimism.

On the one hand the notaries report that during July 45,710 residential properties changed hands, 2.6 per cent more than in the same month last year, but at the same time the provisional data for the month show a 0.5 per cent decrease in the average price paid per square metre to the lowest level in the last eight months.

Spanish national news

The Catalan independence referendum dominates the news all week

Once again the news in Spain this week has been utterly dominated by events preceding the planned independence referendum in Catalunya, which is scheduled to be held on 1^st October, but which during this week has gradually begun to appear increasingly less likely to take place in any format.

By Thursday there were mounting calls for regional president Carles Puigdemont to call off or at least postpone the vote, as the efforts on the part of the national government to prevent it taking place appeared to be meeting with success. Mariano Rajoy, the President of the national government, stated on Wednesday that it was still not too late for the Catalan government to backtrack, thus losing face but, in Sr Rajoy’s words, avoiding still greater woes. Whether this was a veiled threat of legal action is not clear, but what can be surmised is that the seizure of almost 10 million ballot sheets and the interception of an estimated 80 per cent of the official letters sent to inform members of the public that they are required to staff polling stations have given rise to serious doubts over the viability of the voting process.

In addition, 1.3 million posters and leaflets promoting the “Yes” campaign were confiscated from a warehouse in the province of Barcelona, websites set up by the Catalan government to offer an alternative voting platform after their main site was closed down have also been shut down by the Guardia Civil, and so committed has the national government’s reaction been since the referendum was called amid scenes of premature triumphalism in Barcelona a couple of weeks ago that earlier this Wednesday a dozen Catalan government officials were arrested on suspicion of having collaborated in the organization and financing of the vote, an intervention which led to a mass protest on the streets of the regional capital on Wednesday evening. An estimated 40,000 people took to the streets to voice their opposition to such heavy-handed treatment and the atmosphere in La Rambla and the Gran Vía of Barcelona is reported to have been tense.

Meanwhile there has been no visible sign of any weakening of the resolve to prevent the holding of the referendum, which has been banned by Spain’s Constitutional Court. Up to 5,000 extra riot squad officers are being drafted in to serve in Catalunya in the run-up to the proposed referendum on 1^st October, and so large is the scale of the operation that the Ministry of the Interior is planning to charter cruise ships to be moored in the port of Barcelona so that they have somewhere to stay.

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy maintains the same stance as was taken when the previous president of the region attempted to hold a referendum, namely that a referendum breaches the conditions of the Spanish Constitution and is itself unconstitutional, as it allows the majority of Spain no say in the future of the country, in a decision which will adversely affect the whole country.

In the meantime, in what may be a case of jumping on the bandwagon, this week one of the parties which form the current coalition regional government in the Balearic Islands has unveiled its intention of holding a similar consultation among the population of Mallorca in the year 2030. Should the independent Republican State of Mallorca be formed, the rest of the islands would be allowed to transfer their allegiance to the new State in a “joint national project”.

Back in Catalunya, the week’s stories included 21 people being injured in a Barcelona bakery explosion, a rogue goat which was captured in a disabled toilet after wandering into the Hospital La Fe in Valencia and the good news that a newborn baby was miraculously found alive after being found with his umbilical cord still attached in a rubbish container in Ourense.

But there is little doubt about it, with only just over a week remaining until 1^st October: for the next few days events or the lack of them in Catalunya are almost bound to hog the headlines!

Scroll down below for a selection of Spanish news stories over the last week…

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