WIN WIN WIN Tickets for Kid Creole concert to be won but be quick! See Page 17 See page 8
EU grants funded the Algarrobico
Massive row between government and Junta over who sanctioned funds for illegal hotel. See Page 10
Drowning tragedy AN IRISH toddler has drowned after falling into a neighbour’s pool. The two-year-old’s father found his body at 10.30am on Monday, at El Coto urbanisation in Mijas. Police were alerted by the child’s parents as they frantically searched for their son, who had been missing for more than an hour. It was just moments after reporting the child missing that they found his body in the neighbour’s pool.
Emergency There were no eyewitnesses, but it is believed the tragedy occurred after the boy fell while walking along a wall separating his family home from the neighbouring property. “I found his father calling out desperately for his son,” said the family’s landlord. “As a last resort he looked over the wall between the two houses and found him there, floating in the pool.” Emergency services were quick to arrive but medics confirmed the death at the scene.
olive press The original and only English-language investigative newspaper in Andalucía
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Vol. 8 Issue 194 www.theolivepress.es
August 20 - September 3 2014
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Incensed!
DOZENS of victims of the horror fire that razed large parts of Mijas and Marbella in August 2012 have still not received compensation. While many trees have regrown and the area is returning to health, the victims - many of them expats - have not received a penny in compensation. Despite being promised €14,500 ‘emergency payments’ from the Junta, the vast majority of families have received nothing. They are living in ‘limbo’ and unable to move on. British expat Sharron Cromwell, who lived in Spain for 13 years until being forced to return to the UK last year, told the Olive Press: “I have lost everything... And have received no help despite paying my taxes in Spain for well over a decade.”
EXCLUSIVE: Dozens of expats still awaiting compensation for fire that razed their homes on the Costa del Sol two years ago
Radio out! Maurice Boland’s back...but what new career path has the celeb DJ picked? See Page 3
By Imogen Calderwood
extinguish the blaze. The clean up, supported by the Olive Press, saw thousands of expats donate food and clothes to those who lost homes. An Olive Press campaign to support the victims’ demands to get help and compensation clearly hasn’t helped. Cromwell, originally from Lancashire, sold two bars in Fuengirola to buy her dream Homeless house and land in Mijas. She had been one of over “I put everything into that 4,000 people who were house but the fire took it from evacuated when the horrific me,” Cromwell, 47, told the blaze had spread rapidly from Olive Press. the Cerro Alaminos area, “I went back the next morning near Coin, to cross four town after spending the night in my boundaries on August 30. car to find my house burnt to Aided by strong winds, high the ground. temperatures and Spain’s dri- “Since then we have tried evest winter in 70 years, it led erything to get help. We went to the severe damage of 224 to the Junta and to Mijas. We homes, and more than 8,200 asked for help from social sehectares of land. curity but they said they could It took more than 600 not help homeless people. firefighters and 28 planes “We went to the Guardia Civil and helicopters three days to and filled out forms detailing
BURNT TO THE GROUND: All that remained of Sharron Cromwell’s dream home, and Sharron (below) trying to get her life back on track
all we had lost.” Yet after two years of waiting there has been no contact from anyone. “I put so much into Spain, I paid my taxes for 13 years and my social security. I wasn’t trying to scrounge and yet it seems to me they are not helping or giving anything back.” “I just want to know why they promised to help us but then gave nothing.” Pat Laing, originally from Manchester, who helped launch the Olive Press campaign after her Mijas home was damaged in the fire said:
Who gets the sunbed? “Many of us are still living in limbo, renting apartments or staying with friends.” The Facebook group Victimas del Incendio is still leading an Andalucia-wide movement to get the Junta to change a 2011 law which is preventing homeowners from starting to rebuild. Meanwhile Mijas Town Hall has confirmed that it was the Junta that made the promise of compensation, and it is the responsibility of the Junta to pay it now. The Junta was unavailable for comment.
German paper on the offensive in ongoing towel war See Page 2
To the hills Explore the chameleon-dotted streets of Andalucia’s own artists’ haven, Gaucin See Pages 21-28
Find your dream property today! Turn to page 2 8 to find out more 694 473 055 spainbuyingguide.com
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