ENTIRE GOLF RESORT BUILT IN PROTECTED AREA TO BE DEMOLISHED
After a fourteen-year long battle, Spain’s highest court has ruled that an entire golf resort including a four-star hotel and nearly 200 houses have to be demolished.
On Tuesday, the Spanish supreme court published its decision that the luxury Marina Isla de Valdecanas development has been built in a protected natural area.
According to the resort’s website, the luxury development is about 100 miles west of Madrid, and it boasts the closest fine sand beach to the capital.
CNN reports that the resort has been subject to a 14-year legal battle brought by an ecological campaign group named Ecologistas en Accion, which said the development had been built in a protected area that should be returned to its natural state.
It’s not clear why the developers were given permission to develop the luxury resort in the first place.
In 2020, a court ruling estimated that the cost of destroying the entire development would be close to 34 million euros, and that compensation to property owners would be in the region of 111 million euros.
Image credit: The Times