Marbella to rename streets linked to Franco dictatorship

MARBELLA Council will remove the names of people involved in fascism or corruption from the city’s streets, the new socialist mayor has announced.
Jose Bernal, who took possession of the office on June 13 after a four-way pact ousted former mayor Angeles Muñoz, has explained that the University of Malaga would be carrying out a study on street names to allow those with names linked to the dictatorship, or anyone who had harmed citizens morally, ethically or physically, to be changed.
The initiative, part of a Historical Memory law, will also see a controversial stained-glass window on the second floor of the town hall building removed.
The window, which bears a pro-Franco shield, would be removed, the mayor said, but would be conserved as artistic heritage as it was made by Valencian sculptor and painter Vicente de Espona, who lived in Marbella from 1971 until he died in 1995.
A plaque was also planned for the town hall entrance with the names of the first 25 councillors in the city after democracy was re-established and all monuments labelled as part of the GIL programme would be removed from around the city, Bernal explained.