Anybody approaching Almuñécar on the N-340 from La Herradura cannot fail to have noticed the monstrosity that is the Hotel Piccadilly structure.
The building has stood in its bare structure for well over a decade, after its construction was ordered to halt. Years of judicial proceedings ended with a court sentence from the Regional High Court (TSJA) to pull it down, which consecutive PP mayors (Herrera & Ruiz Joya) have neglected to do.
Quite apart from the fact that the owners tried to include three floors more than permitted, it allegedly encroaches upon public, roadside land.
The structure used to (perhaps it still does) belong to the family of a PP councillor within one of the Herrera cabinets, yet should the average Almuñécar citizen transgress building regulations on their own property, they cannot expect such ‘leniency’ from the Town Hall.
The project goes back to the time of when Juan Luis González Montoro in the early 2000s was in the Mayor’s office. This was when the PP and PSOE ousted Juan Carlos Benavides through a legislature pact whereby the two parties would share the Mayoralty (first the PP under González and then the PSOE under Rebollo).
After this messy arrangement, Benavides returned to power and according to his party, they began the administrative paperwork to have it demolished, only for the process to be halted up to this very day by three successive PP administrations in power.
Over the years the Seaside Gazette has received complaints about this eyesore, asking when something was going to be done about it. The answer was then and is now, never, it appears. Perhaps the new PGOU will legalise it by changing the land category?
(News: Almunecar, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)