The residents of the Puerto Pollensa urbanisation of Gotmar received an early Christmas present when Pollensa town hall announced five days before Christmas that it would start work on improvements to the urbanisation in the new year. These are improvements which have been a long time in the waiting.
The story of the urbanisation and the problems it has encountered go back to its development in the 1960s. As with other urbanisations, it was essentially a private initiative. There are numerous examples elsewhere of urbanisations created by private companies or individuals which had to wait many years before they were "received" by town halls, i.e. they officially became local authority responsibilities with all the attendant services these imply. In Gotmar's case it was to be some fifteen years after the development was started before it was "received" by the town hall.
Over thirty years, however, the urbanisation has not been paid the attention it should have been. Things really started to come to a head around six years ago when the town hall said that improvements to pavements, roads, drainage and street lighting would be undertaken but with the aid of money raised through a special charge on residents.
This charge, naturally enough, didn't sit well with property owners who had seen the urbanisation deteriorate because of apparent town hall neglect. Around this time, therefore, these owners started to exert their muscle. And one of the most vocal was Dr. Garry Bonsall, the founder and first president of the Gotmar Residents' Association.
Garry, who is no longer a permanent resident in Gotmar, is someone I know quite well. He was a thorough pain in the town hall's backside, especially that of the by then mayor Joan Cerdà. Pressure from the residents' association began to bear some fruit. The mayor conceded that there should be an architect's plan for Gotmar's rehabilitation but insisted that there wasn't the finance to effect it. The residents' association disagreed. It was the town hall's obligation.
The influence of this association cannot be underestimated. There had been a previous association but it was all but moribund. It was reconstituted and became a powerful voice, and one of those who helped it to become so was, surprisingly one might think, the current mayor Tomeu Cifre. It was he who suggested that the association should be the means of communication with the town hall and the means therefore of channelling complaints.
Residents' associations can, if set up properly, be influential, and so it proved with the Gotmar association. Now, some years after it began to take on and challenge the town hall, the urbanisation is to get the improvements that had been demanded years ago.
It should not be forgotten in all of this that it was Cifre who was instrumental in getting the association back up and running. It is he who has now approved financing of over one million euros; the special charge is not to be applied. There is perhaps an irony regarding Cifre's involvement. Regularly criticised for acting in a less than fully participatory fashion and in a less than accountable manner, the suggestion he made about the association was one in which participation and accountability were inherent.
On becoming mayor, there had been the prospect of Cifre meeting regularly with a sort of confederation of different residents' associations in Pollensa. This appears not to have happened, but this may not be because the mayor found he had other things to do but because of the associations themselves.
Recently, the role of residents' associations was spoken about in a wider context than just Pollensa, so across the Balearics. They have a role to play for several reasons. One is that they are a genuine form of citizen participation. Two is that town halls are obliged to listen to them. Three is that they give non-Spanish residents a place in local democracy which they might not otherwise take, or take particularly seriously. Though non-Spaniards can vote in local elections, rare are those who become actively involved in local politics. As groups - and they can comprise considerable numbers of voters - they can influence or threaten to influence the outcome of elections, so they do have to be listened to, but only if they are organised properly and act with common purpose. One suspects that this doesn't always happen.
As with any group, there is the potential for factions to form and for there to be separate agendas. The Gotmar association, when Garry was president, was evidence of how to try and avoid this. Efforts were made, which included bringing in a trainer, to get people to work towards specific objectives and a common purpose, thus overcoming differences which might stem from cultural differences or simply different agendas. But, and in Mallorca it is especially the case, the differences can arise for reasons unrelated to issues which residents might face. They can include the power of individual friendships linked to political parties which undermine a common purpose - the pervasiveness, therefore, of amiguismo and of self-interests.
Then there is the potential for one association to dominate a confederation. In Pollensa, the residents association in Puerto Pollensa is powerful insofar as it operates as a commercial entity. It runs the beach, for example. And it hasn't been immune from accusations of a rather cosy relationship with the town hall. If it operates to its own agenda, then why should it be that interested in what other associations want?
In Gotmar at least the association does seem to have got what it wanted, though whether this is as a result of some political expediency - local elections looming - is hard to say.
Showing posts with label Gotmar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gotmar. Show all posts
Thursday, December 26, 2013
Saturday, December 21, 2013
MALLORCA TODAY - Improvements to Gotmar to start in the new year
Pollensa town hall has announced that 1.2 million euros are to be spent on improvements to the Gotmar urbanisation in Puerto Pollensa. Undertaken in two phases, the first beginning in January, the work will include improvements to street lighting and paving.
See more: Diario de Mallorca
See more: Diario de Mallorca
Saturday, October 20, 2012
MALLORCA TODAY - TV thief of Gotmar is arrested
The Guardia Civil has arrested a young Romanian man accused of robbing three plasma-screen televisions from a house in the Gotmar area of Puerto Pollensa.
See more: Diario de Mallorca
See more: Diario de Mallorca
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Vote For Me And I'll Set You Free
So, I had gone to pay for the coffees, and there was a familiar expat at the bar. He noticed the copy of "The Bulletin" and wondered what I was doing reading the paper, about which he was less than complimentary. The answer was because it has things in it that the Spanish or British press would not. And one of those things is its letters. This I explained to the chap at the bar. "A letter by Garry Bonsall." "Again!!?" was the response. It seemed somewhat surprising a response from someone who seemingly didn't read the paper, but be that as it may. The drift of the resultant argument was that there are certain expats who are driven by certain motives to appear regularly in the paper's letters section. The implication was that they should shut it - sending the letters, that is, as opposed to the paper.
It is fair to say that there are a few names that do appear regularly with their names appended to letters, but if they have something relevant to say, what is the problem? My friend at the bar considers it an exercise in oversized egos. One could take a different view, which is that they care, and are prepared to express this. The problem is that if someone sticks his or her head above the expat parapet, there are plenty who will delight in shooting it off. Perhaps this blog is merely an exercise in ego, too. If so, I shall, like the birds being hunted at the moment, watch out for rifles glinting in the autumn sun.
The English-speaking fourth estate in Mallorca, most obviously "The Bulletin", is the the most significant medium that British expatriates can use to voice their opinions. That only a few seem to choose to do so is neither their problem nor the paper's. But the question of motive is a fair one. And that brings me to what Dr. Bonsall had to say this time. In brief, his letter was a form of call to arms to expats to create associations (together with local people) in all the island's municipalities as a force to influence the local political process. The motive was political.
It is probably fair to say that the expat voice and vote is largely overlooked, and one reason for this is that the expat is generally apathetic. He is more interested in British politics than in a Spanish or local Mallorcan alternative. Even those who might be inclined to vote (as they can, assuming they are registered, in local and European elections) would probably find it challenging to know what the issues were. Certainly at a local municipal level, there is no mechanism to spell out in English what these might be, and, for most expats, that would be necessary, even for those with a reasonable grasp of Castilian or Catalan. The language effectively disenfranchises the expat, except where they choose on purely party grounds. And my guess would be that the favoured party would be the conservative Partido Popular. How many expats would vote for the nationalists, for example?
What Garry is arguing is that political parties prepared to support the agendas of these local associations would benefit from their vote. In certain instances, this might well prove to be decisive. His own association, the Gotmar residents in Puerto Pollensa, has a considerable beef with the nationalist-topped Pollensa town hall (it is actually a coalition). I don't know that it takes too much imagination to think which opposition party it may wish to talk to. There are, however, certain issues that this raises. Firstly, there are really only four municipalities in Mallorca where there is anything like a sizeable (UK) expat registered population. In order of size, these are Calvia (which includes the likes of Magalluf and Santa Ponsa), Palma (where the numbers are dwarfed anyway), Pollensa and Alcúdia. To give an example of the smallness in other towns, the figures for the start of 2007 showed that there were 2100 people from the UK registered in Pollensa and Alcúdia and five other places - Sa Pobla, Campanet, Búger, Muro and Santa Margalida. Of this total, only 17% reside in those five municipalities together. And these figures do not take account of those actually registered to vote; they are population statistics. In Pollensa and Alcúdia, the percentage of the town's populations made up of UK people is less than 10% in both cases. It is not insignificant, but would it ever amount to some sort of unified pressure group or voting bloc either municipal-wide or neighbourhood-based?
Even if one were to add on other expat nationalities, who is to say that there would be a harmonious and unanimous agenda? Take any group and rub them with politics and the likelihood is that they would form factions, whether on the basis of issues or nationality (if there were wider expat groups). With the Gotmar residents, who are multi-national, there are basically two issues - the town hall's apparent indifference to the state of amenities in the urbanisation and the perceived injustice of the pedestrianisation scheme as it affects them. They are issues around which unanimity can form. Yet is there not the potential for a certain bias to then be played out? Were a political party to say yes to their grievances, secure their vote and then win, what has happened to all the other issues in the municipality? The association may well be exercising a democratic right to press its claims, but at what cost to others? It would be a classic example of how single-issue (or double-issue if you prefer) politics can skew the practice of democracy. But this is to assume that the chosen political party would then indeed follow through. Promises and broken promises are the stuff of politics.
There is the potential also for this to be seen as the work of some uppity foreigners, even where the associations comprise Mallorcans as well. Let's assume that the Gotmar residents attracted the support of a party, voted for it, and it then won, with the Gotmar vote being seen as decisive in the election of a new mayor. It is not strange for self-interest to influence a vote and nor is it undemocratic, but Gotmar is recognised as an area of some affluence. Whether inclusive of Mallorcans or not, one could see the possibility of a degree of resentment among the wider electorate at the actions and influence of a vociferous and minted group that would inevitably be regarded as "foreign". A way of combatting this would be to present the Gotmar case in the context of a municipal-wide dissatisfaction with the present administration, though that would make what was just a neighbourhood group a de facto political entity. But effectively that is what it would have become anyway. Garry has said previously that his association is non-partisan in the political sense, but by auctioning off its vote to a particular party, does it not become partisan?
However, as a way of engaging the otherwise apathetic expat with local politics, there is probably merit in what is being proposed. There again, that chap at the bar. He turned back to his British newspaper and was going to head home for some bacon and eggs, and that would have been the end of the local politics for the day and probably the rest of the year. Just about sums it up.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Spandau Ballet (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLR9yyI9CHg). Today's title - line from something that shifted a famous record label towards a touch of psychedelia.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
It is fair to say that there are a few names that do appear regularly with their names appended to letters, but if they have something relevant to say, what is the problem? My friend at the bar considers it an exercise in oversized egos. One could take a different view, which is that they care, and are prepared to express this. The problem is that if someone sticks his or her head above the expat parapet, there are plenty who will delight in shooting it off. Perhaps this blog is merely an exercise in ego, too. If so, I shall, like the birds being hunted at the moment, watch out for rifles glinting in the autumn sun.
The English-speaking fourth estate in Mallorca, most obviously "The Bulletin", is the the most significant medium that British expatriates can use to voice their opinions. That only a few seem to choose to do so is neither their problem nor the paper's. But the question of motive is a fair one. And that brings me to what Dr. Bonsall had to say this time. In brief, his letter was a form of call to arms to expats to create associations (together with local people) in all the island's municipalities as a force to influence the local political process. The motive was political.
It is probably fair to say that the expat voice and vote is largely overlooked, and one reason for this is that the expat is generally apathetic. He is more interested in British politics than in a Spanish or local Mallorcan alternative. Even those who might be inclined to vote (as they can, assuming they are registered, in local and European elections) would probably find it challenging to know what the issues were. Certainly at a local municipal level, there is no mechanism to spell out in English what these might be, and, for most expats, that would be necessary, even for those with a reasonable grasp of Castilian or Catalan. The language effectively disenfranchises the expat, except where they choose on purely party grounds. And my guess would be that the favoured party would be the conservative Partido Popular. How many expats would vote for the nationalists, for example?
What Garry is arguing is that political parties prepared to support the agendas of these local associations would benefit from their vote. In certain instances, this might well prove to be decisive. His own association, the Gotmar residents in Puerto Pollensa, has a considerable beef with the nationalist-topped Pollensa town hall (it is actually a coalition). I don't know that it takes too much imagination to think which opposition party it may wish to talk to. There are, however, certain issues that this raises. Firstly, there are really only four municipalities in Mallorca where there is anything like a sizeable (UK) expat registered population. In order of size, these are Calvia (which includes the likes of Magalluf and Santa Ponsa), Palma (where the numbers are dwarfed anyway), Pollensa and Alcúdia. To give an example of the smallness in other towns, the figures for the start of 2007 showed that there were 2100 people from the UK registered in Pollensa and Alcúdia and five other places - Sa Pobla, Campanet, Búger, Muro and Santa Margalida. Of this total, only 17% reside in those five municipalities together. And these figures do not take account of those actually registered to vote; they are population statistics. In Pollensa and Alcúdia, the percentage of the town's populations made up of UK people is less than 10% in both cases. It is not insignificant, but would it ever amount to some sort of unified pressure group or voting bloc either municipal-wide or neighbourhood-based?
Even if one were to add on other expat nationalities, who is to say that there would be a harmonious and unanimous agenda? Take any group and rub them with politics and the likelihood is that they would form factions, whether on the basis of issues or nationality (if there were wider expat groups). With the Gotmar residents, who are multi-national, there are basically two issues - the town hall's apparent indifference to the state of amenities in the urbanisation and the perceived injustice of the pedestrianisation scheme as it affects them. They are issues around which unanimity can form. Yet is there not the potential for a certain bias to then be played out? Were a political party to say yes to their grievances, secure their vote and then win, what has happened to all the other issues in the municipality? The association may well be exercising a democratic right to press its claims, but at what cost to others? It would be a classic example of how single-issue (or double-issue if you prefer) politics can skew the practice of democracy. But this is to assume that the chosen political party would then indeed follow through. Promises and broken promises are the stuff of politics.
There is the potential also for this to be seen as the work of some uppity foreigners, even where the associations comprise Mallorcans as well. Let's assume that the Gotmar residents attracted the support of a party, voted for it, and it then won, with the Gotmar vote being seen as decisive in the election of a new mayor. It is not strange for self-interest to influence a vote and nor is it undemocratic, but Gotmar is recognised as an area of some affluence. Whether inclusive of Mallorcans or not, one could see the possibility of a degree of resentment among the wider electorate at the actions and influence of a vociferous and minted group that would inevitably be regarded as "foreign". A way of combatting this would be to present the Gotmar case in the context of a municipal-wide dissatisfaction with the present administration, though that would make what was just a neighbourhood group a de facto political entity. But effectively that is what it would have become anyway. Garry has said previously that his association is non-partisan in the political sense, but by auctioning off its vote to a particular party, does it not become partisan?
However, as a way of engaging the otherwise apathetic expat with local politics, there is probably merit in what is being proposed. There again, that chap at the bar. He turned back to his British newspaper and was going to head home for some bacon and eggs, and that would have been the end of the local politics for the day and probably the rest of the year. Just about sums it up.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Spandau Ballet (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLR9yyI9CHg). Today's title - line from something that shifted a famous record label towards a touch of psychedelia.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
The Long And Whining Road
Is there a campaign of sending a barrage of letters to "The Bulletin" in protest at the pedestrianisation in Puerto Pollensa? If so, one wonders whether it will do much good, unless, that is, "The Bulletin" were to join with the good people of Gotmar and Pinaret in storming the Calvari steps and the town hall's defences and proclaiming a people's revolution of the non-pedestrian. Perhaps Gotmar should declare independence. What a splendid wheeze that would be.
Following a lengthy epistle from Garry Bonsall to the editorial in-tray, yesterday there was a further expression of objection to the pedestrianisation scheme. Among other things, it invokes European law in respect of both consultation and the environment in arguing against. Ah yes, consultation and the environment. Gone are the good old days when a road could be laid with nary a word in the ear of the local peasant as he saw his small holding flattened; gone are the days when a more wealthy inhabitant with a peseta or two to his name could go out to work one day and come home to find a demolition ball hammering into his living room. Gone also are the days when a whole ocean of tarmac and concrete could be deposited on virgin land, burying endangered flora and fauna in the process. It didn't matter because there were always some more somewhere else until they too were bulldozed into oblivion.
You might think that citing the law, albeit European law, was a reasonable line of defence, but law here is a matter of some considerable alternative interpretation, be it European or Spanish. Just to refer back to the driving-licence malarkey. Not only did I speak to my gestor, I also spoke to my lawyer. He told me his Hungarian girlfriend is still driving around with a Hungarian licence; first he'd heard of the need to change it to a Spanish one. What chance is there for the rest of us or for the protesting cadre of Gotmar?
The pedestrianisation fiasco is now a cause célèbre in Puerto Pollensa. Little though I understand the point of it, the new road's very existence has to be the main impetus behind it. But the Elcano-Paris compromise, as I referred to before, nullifies this to a large extent. I'm now no longer sure what the objection is, other than a still-simmering objection to the new road having carved its way through the quiet enclaves of Gotmar and Pinaret and an increase in traffic along the Avenida Paris. And as for that new road, don't let's forget that a plan for it was first set out as long ago as 1967; it's not as if there was no forewarning.
Maybe though a once-and-for-all physical pedestrianisation would form part of the town hall's annual job-creation scheme in winter, whereby roads are ripped up, huge holes are made and eventually get filled in. If so, it's not as if there aren't other such schemes that could be contemplated, such as tackling the state of those roads that are not - yet - subject to pedestrianisation; like, well, all of them in Puerto Pollensa. However, one should not lose sight of the fact that the compromise is itself still only a trial.
I am sympathetic to those living in Pinaret (and the compromise appears to affect them and not Gotmar residents) and to anyone else who fails to see the sense of the pedestrianisation. But there is one point, and that is that this has been on the cards for a number of years. That it may have finally come about with a lack of full consultation is one thing, but one wonders whether some proactive lobbying against the idea might not have been adopted in the past to prevent it ever having come about. The protests, however, can be seen in a wider context of concerns at the way the town hall appears to ride roughshod over people's wishes and their neighbourhoods. Nevertheless, I would challenge anyone to say that the status quo of the road infrastructure in the town could have been allowed to, and be allowed to remain. The resort simply can't cope, and it hasn't been able to for years.
And so to different roads, the side roads that are to be found the length of the Carretera Artà from Puerto Alcúdia to Can Picafort. Note the word "roads"; it is not unimportant. When the weather is as rubbish as it is at the moment, the poor old tourist is left with little else to do than wander along these side roads in a daze of disappointment as another shower breaks out. They are also prone to a drenching as some mobile dance club throbs by at great speed and splashes them with a tsunami of disturbed puddle. But bear in mind again that word "roads". These side roads are, surprising it may be to those of a pedestrian inclination, not pavements. Unlike some, I do not take these roads as though I were hacking along the Mulsanne Straight. I take them sedately, I don't even hit the horn as I know I am likely to be accused of manslaughter because of the heart attack it will cause. I just wait for the pedestrians of these non-pedestrianised "roads" to become aware that there's a whacking great bit of steel in motion nearly touching their rear ends. Yesterday, going along the side road past the Eden Alcúdia, there was a youth in the middle of the road with his back to me. His t-shirt bore the legend "The Miracle Boy". What if I were to put my foot down? I was sorely tempted, believe me. Thus, we would both have discovered if he truly was a miracle boy or indeed the miracle boy.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - "Creep", Radiohead (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxpblnsJEWM). Today's title - "whining" is harsh, but it fits as a variant on this.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Following a lengthy epistle from Garry Bonsall to the editorial in-tray, yesterday there was a further expression of objection to the pedestrianisation scheme. Among other things, it invokes European law in respect of both consultation and the environment in arguing against. Ah yes, consultation and the environment. Gone are the good old days when a road could be laid with nary a word in the ear of the local peasant as he saw his small holding flattened; gone are the days when a more wealthy inhabitant with a peseta or two to his name could go out to work one day and come home to find a demolition ball hammering into his living room. Gone also are the days when a whole ocean of tarmac and concrete could be deposited on virgin land, burying endangered flora and fauna in the process. It didn't matter because there were always some more somewhere else until they too were bulldozed into oblivion.
You might think that citing the law, albeit European law, was a reasonable line of defence, but law here is a matter of some considerable alternative interpretation, be it European or Spanish. Just to refer back to the driving-licence malarkey. Not only did I speak to my gestor, I also spoke to my lawyer. He told me his Hungarian girlfriend is still driving around with a Hungarian licence; first he'd heard of the need to change it to a Spanish one. What chance is there for the rest of us or for the protesting cadre of Gotmar?
The pedestrianisation fiasco is now a cause célèbre in Puerto Pollensa. Little though I understand the point of it, the new road's very existence has to be the main impetus behind it. But the Elcano-Paris compromise, as I referred to before, nullifies this to a large extent. I'm now no longer sure what the objection is, other than a still-simmering objection to the new road having carved its way through the quiet enclaves of Gotmar and Pinaret and an increase in traffic along the Avenida Paris. And as for that new road, don't let's forget that a plan for it was first set out as long ago as 1967; it's not as if there was no forewarning.
Maybe though a once-and-for-all physical pedestrianisation would form part of the town hall's annual job-creation scheme in winter, whereby roads are ripped up, huge holes are made and eventually get filled in. If so, it's not as if there aren't other such schemes that could be contemplated, such as tackling the state of those roads that are not - yet - subject to pedestrianisation; like, well, all of them in Puerto Pollensa. However, one should not lose sight of the fact that the compromise is itself still only a trial.
I am sympathetic to those living in Pinaret (and the compromise appears to affect them and not Gotmar residents) and to anyone else who fails to see the sense of the pedestrianisation. But there is one point, and that is that this has been on the cards for a number of years. That it may have finally come about with a lack of full consultation is one thing, but one wonders whether some proactive lobbying against the idea might not have been adopted in the past to prevent it ever having come about. The protests, however, can be seen in a wider context of concerns at the way the town hall appears to ride roughshod over people's wishes and their neighbourhoods. Nevertheless, I would challenge anyone to say that the status quo of the road infrastructure in the town could have been allowed to, and be allowed to remain. The resort simply can't cope, and it hasn't been able to for years.
And so to different roads, the side roads that are to be found the length of the Carretera Artà from Puerto Alcúdia to Can Picafort. Note the word "roads"; it is not unimportant. When the weather is as rubbish as it is at the moment, the poor old tourist is left with little else to do than wander along these side roads in a daze of disappointment as another shower breaks out. They are also prone to a drenching as some mobile dance club throbs by at great speed and splashes them with a tsunami of disturbed puddle. But bear in mind again that word "roads". These side roads are, surprising it may be to those of a pedestrian inclination, not pavements. Unlike some, I do not take these roads as though I were hacking along the Mulsanne Straight. I take them sedately, I don't even hit the horn as I know I am likely to be accused of manslaughter because of the heart attack it will cause. I just wait for the pedestrians of these non-pedestrianised "roads" to become aware that there's a whacking great bit of steel in motion nearly touching their rear ends. Yesterday, going along the side road past the Eden Alcúdia, there was a youth in the middle of the road with his back to me. His t-shirt bore the legend "The Miracle Boy". What if I were to put my foot down? I was sorely tempted, believe me. Thus, we would both have discovered if he truly was a miracle boy or indeed the miracle boy.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - "Creep", Radiohead (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxpblnsJEWM). Today's title - "whining" is harsh, but it fits as a variant on this.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Sunday, December 09, 2007
Streets Of Your Town
Neighbourhoods. In the ‘hood. Some of us live in neighbourhoods, uncharmingly known as urbanisations. My own was started by the people who built the Esperanza hotel in Playa de Muro. I was on the upper terrace of one house in my neighbourhood earlier today. In all directions there were villas and chalets, each with a story, some of them not repeatable. Germans, French, Mallorcan, Spanish, British, a small enclave of part European Union, even though most keep themselves to themselves. Like anywhere.
Some live in neighbourhoods where the neighbours do not just keep to themselves and kick up a fuss about poor service from the local town hall. In the villa-graced residential area of Gotmar in Puerto Pollensa, with a similar demographic to my own, but bigger and partly built into a hillside, the neighbourhood group has taken cash-strapped Pollensa town hall to task over deficiencies such as collapsed pavements, lack of lighting and flooding when it rains heavily. And it looks as though they might be getting somewhere, which all goes to show what some co-operation and determined action can achieve.
Then there are some who live in ‘hoods that are far more in keeping with the gangsta implication of the ‘hood term. Take Son Banya in Palma, not much more than a shanty town, and the scene of a heavy police presence each weekend for the past three weeks. Drugs. Road blocks, tear-gas and Molotov cocktails, hardly the normal stuff of Mallorcan life, and a world away from my neighbourhood. The determined action there is now to try and secure a truce.
I first came to Mallorca in 1969. From the balcony of our hotel, I could see what was a shanty town, a small one, just a few ramshackle lean-tos or corrugated-roofed huts. These “dwellings” backed onto the neighbouring hotel. And now the shanties still exist with all the added problems handed down over a generation and a half.
Mallorca – one place, different worlds. Like anywhere. From the Mercedes and Audis of Playa de Muro and Gotmar to the burnt-out shell of an old Escort somewhere in Palma.
QUIZ
Yesterday – Bing Crosby. Today’s title – probably a few that might apply, but this is the title of a song by a great Australian group, which seems appropriate given the neighbours bit.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Some live in neighbourhoods where the neighbours do not just keep to themselves and kick up a fuss about poor service from the local town hall. In the villa-graced residential area of Gotmar in Puerto Pollensa, with a similar demographic to my own, but bigger and partly built into a hillside, the neighbourhood group has taken cash-strapped Pollensa town hall to task over deficiencies such as collapsed pavements, lack of lighting and flooding when it rains heavily. And it looks as though they might be getting somewhere, which all goes to show what some co-operation and determined action can achieve.
Then there are some who live in ‘hoods that are far more in keeping with the gangsta implication of the ‘hood term. Take Son Banya in Palma, not much more than a shanty town, and the scene of a heavy police presence each weekend for the past three weeks. Drugs. Road blocks, tear-gas and Molotov cocktails, hardly the normal stuff of Mallorcan life, and a world away from my neighbourhood. The determined action there is now to try and secure a truce.
I first came to Mallorca in 1969. From the balcony of our hotel, I could see what was a shanty town, a small one, just a few ramshackle lean-tos or corrugated-roofed huts. These “dwellings” backed onto the neighbouring hotel. And now the shanties still exist with all the added problems handed down over a generation and a half.
Mallorca – one place, different worlds. Like anywhere. From the Mercedes and Audis of Playa de Muro and Gotmar to the burnt-out shell of an old Escort somewhere in Palma.
QUIZ
Yesterday – Bing Crosby. Today’s title – probably a few that might apply, but this is the title of a song by a great Australian group, which seems appropriate given the neighbours bit.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
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