Work on Nerja’s new library remains at a standstill over technical disagreements

The town hall blames the delay to disagreements between the drafters of the document and the technicians from Malaga's provincial authority, the Diputación de Málaga, which is responsible for supervising the project.

The setback stems from the conditions of the subsoil on the land on Calle Iglesia. The contractor, Construcciones Majoin S.L., requested a temporary suspension of the work after circumstances arose that had not been initially anticipated and which necessitated a review of part of the foundations and the retaining structures. On 10 March, the town hall authorised the preparation of the amended plans.

The solution agreed upon at the time between the company, the project management team and the municipal engineers, involves constructing the entire foundation using micropiles, modifying the retaining system and adapting the design to the actual geometry of the plot resulting from the demolitions. It was also proposed to replace certain anchoring systems originally planned with bracing systems.

The town hall has said that the document subsequently received favourable reports from the municipal architect and the head of the infrastructure department and that on 4 June it was forwarded to the Diputación. Since then, according to Nerja town hall the provincial authority has issued three unfavourable reports, each accompanied by further requests for rectification.

The mayor, José Alberto Armijo, considers these technical disagreements to be "incomprehensible" and has described the ongoing delay as "unacceptable". Armijo has called on the technicians involved to provide an "immediate solution" that will allow the amended proposal to be definitively approved and the project, which is jointly funded by the town hall and the Dipitación, to resume.

The project has already gone through a lengthy administrative process. After the first tender was unsuccessful, the town hall re-tendered the project in September 2024. The contract was awarded in November of that year to Construcciones Majoin for just under 1.6 million euros, including VAT, with an initial completion period of ten months. The Diputación contributed one million euros, with the remainder coming from the municipal coffers.

The foundation stone was laid on 20 February 2025, at a ceremony attended by Armijo and the president of the Diputación, Francisco Salado. At the time, the town hall spoke of a total investment of around 2.1 million euros and was working on the assumption that the new library would be completed by March 2026. That forecast was subsequently exceeded due to issues that arose during the excavation work.

The future library will cover more than 800 square metres, spread over three above-ground floors and two basement levels. The project includes areas for children’s reading, study, a newspaper and periodicals room and cultural activities, as well as a terrace with sea views. Its location, at number 1 Calle Iglesia and just a few metres from the Balcón de Europa, has been one of the main points highlighted by the town hall to emphasise the building’s unique character.

When authorisation was granted in March to draft the new document, the councillor for town planning and infrastructure, Alberto Tomé, announced that the project management team expected to submit it by the end of that same month. Six months on, the process remains unfinished. It should be noted, however, that the three unfavourable reports cited by the town hall form part of the technical supervision of the amended plan and have given rise to requests for corrections, not to a decision to abandon the project.

Final approval of the amended project is required before work can resume. As yet, the town hall as not announced a new date for the resumption of the work or an updated completion deadline, nor has it specified in this latest press release the potential economic impact of the design changes. Armijo is calling for the differences to be resolved as soon as possible so that work can resume on a library announced at the end of 2019, the physical construction of which began over a year and a half ago.

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