Culture has already protected the Hornillo de Águilas station where a restaurant is planned

The regional decree includes a plan, drawn up by the Historical Heritage Service, in which the Ministry delimits the BIC zone. According to the coordinates and the marked route, the protection affects the jetty, the access tunnels, the station and the warehouses or silos. And it is in the station itself where the restaurant is projected.

The decree points out that “the protection environment is made up of the space that runs longitudinally along the branch that goes from the sea to the Rambla de las Culebras, including the bridge. This environment is justified by constituting its immediate environment and by forming a visual and environmental environment, in which any intervention that is carried out may imply an alteration of the conditions of perception of the property and of the space that surrounds it”.

Sources close to the chef’s environment confirmed to this newspaper that, in the meetings that the cook would have held with the General Directorate of Cultural Heritage, the regional department would not have raised objections to the culinary venue. But the project seems that, in addition to the protection of the bic, it runs into some objections from the urban plan of Águilas, explained the councilor Maido Simó a few days ago. According to the mayor, “the general plan only allows one use of the land as equipment and communications.

That is to say, it is allowed to rehabilitate the building respecting its structure, but in no case could it house a restaurant as such. He added that “this project could only go ahead with a modification of the urban plan and after having presented a special plan”, something that seems more than unlikely because the municipal urban regulation was recently approved.

LA VERDAD has contacted the Ministry of Culture on several occasions to clarify the limitations on possible economic activities that the protection of the old Hornillo station as an Asset of Cultural Interest implies. But this department of the regional government avoids ruling on the matter despite the calls from this newspaper since last Tuesday.

The Águilas City Council announced legal actions against Adif for the alleged “irregular” sale of the land and against the Community for “institutional helplessness”. Councilwoman Simó recounted last Friday, in a press conference in which municipal officials participated, the processes followed by the City Council in its attempts to acquire that plot, without success.