Jobs-short Spanish town to build on 'paradise' beach

A jobs-starved town in southern Spain has sparked uproar by agreeing on a scheme to build 350 homes and a batch of hotels with 1,400 rooms on unspoiled land along a "paradise" beach.

On windy days, the colourful sails of wind- and kite-surfers dot the horizon beyond the pristine, sands by the small Andalusian town of Tarifa.

In the distance you make out the coast of Morocco.

Just across a small road running behind the beach, wild grasses grow, dotted with just a few homes, camping grounds and small hotels.

This is the site the town hall has chosen for the hotel and housing project: a total 84,000 square metres (904,000 square feet) in construction on an area of 70 hectares (170 acres).

The mayor, Juan Andres Gil Garcia, says it will help the economy in a region with a 33-percent unemployment rate, the highest in Spain, which in turn has the highest in Europe.

One reason unemployment is so high however is because a Spanish real-estate burst, leaving parts of the country marred by vast tracts of unsold property.

Green groups and beach-goers are outraged by the latest plan.

"It's crazy, they are going to destroy a paradise," said 37-year-old Noelia Jurado, a member of the citizens group Save Valdevaqueros.

The lobby group was set up after the town council voted to clear the project, which still needs final approval from the regional government of Andalusia.

Details of the scheme, approved by the right and the Socialists, with only the ecological-communist Izquierda Unida party against, have yet to be revealed to the residents.

"It is all very opaque," Noelia said.

She is not alone. The group's Facebook page has 11,000 members, and dozens of people have posted holiday snaps of the beach on the online edition of leading daily El Pais, which opened a dedicated area.

"Please, don't destroy it," said one reader who sent in a picture of three young girls sitting on a dune dominating the beach.

The indignation is also a symptom of the damage done to Spain's coastline in decades of unrestrained construction.

A 2008 property crash plunged Spain into economic and financial crisis, and analysts estimate there are now a million new homes unsold.

In the past 20 years, Spain has lost coastline equal to eight football fields a day to construction, according to Greenpeace.

"It is incredible that the public authorities are still launching this kind of project when the economic model is obsolete," said the group's coastline protection official, Pilar Marcos.

Until now, Tarifa's main beach has been spared in part because of a wind that discourages sun-seekers.

But elsewhere in Andalusia the damage widespread, symbolised by the hell of a huge hotel on the beach at Algarrobico, at the gateway of a natural desert park.

Despite repeated demolitions orders from the courts, some residents still back it in the hope it will create jobs.

In Tarifa, the major is stung by the reaction to the town's new building project.

"This is modern town planning, nothing like the excessive construction along our coasts from decades ago," said the mayor on the town hall's Internet site, which stresses that the scheme only allows one-storey homes and limits hotels to three floors.

Most importantly, it would create jobs.

Opposing the construction is against residents' interests, he said. "It is the worst thing they could do to us."

Defenders of the beach are unconvinced.

The hotels and homes "will never fill up because the best publicity for Tarifa is its untouched beach," said Greenpeace's Pilar Marcos.

Besides, said Noelia Jurado of Save Valdevaqueros, "there are still a huge number of new homes in Tarifa that have been empty for four years."