Battling bureaucracy for the memory of drowned Brits

Tired of inaction, the mayor of Finestrat has travelled to Valencia to demand an urgent resolution to the dangerous Barranco de Finestrat issue.

Torrential rain regularly turns the notorious gully into a raging torrent, as happened in October 2011 when two elderly Britons visiting the open air market were swept to their deaths.

Juan Francisco Perez says that he wasn’t there to plead for money but a simple cutting of potentially disastrous red tape. 

“What we urgently need is authorisation for the town hall’s own technical project, which is the best option and economically viable,” he said.

“This problem comes from outside Finestrat and needs the intervention of higher-ranking administrations,” the mayor continued, referencing the streams from neighbouring areas flowing into the Barranco. 

Two days of official mourning were held for Kenneth and Mary Hall, who were in their 70s, and on holiday from Bootle, near Liverpool. The local authorities had been fined €83,000 the previous year for laying asphalt on the surface of the dry river bed.