Residents collect 3,000 signatures against petrol station project in Costa del Sol town

Residents of the Torrenueva in Las Lagunas, Mijas, one of the largest residential estates in the area with approximately 400 houses, four blocks of flats and three hotels in its grounds, are on the warpath against plans to build a petrol station. They have already collected 3,000 signatures and are announcing various protests in an attempt to stop the construction project.

The president of the residents' association, Fernando Jaén Toscano, explained that their rejection is "unanimous" and justifies it by the fact that the planned location for the installation is "next to a block of flats".

"When we heard about the project, we threw our hands up in the air because of the proximity to the houses and because it breaks the aesthetics of a very well-kept urbanisation. It is going to harm mobility in the main entrance and exit, and there are also environmental issues. About 800 metres away there is another petrol station, so we consider that it is not a necessary service in the area," the residents' representative said.

Toscano pointed out that they have already had a meeting with the town hall and "they tell us that the licence was granted by the previous council, and although they give us their support, they warn us that it is complicated to stop a project with a licence, which is currently pending the environmental study and the rest of the procedures".

It so happens that this is the second neighbourhood movement that has arisen in the municipality in a few months against the construction of a petrol station. The residents of El Coto and its surroundings are continuing their fight to stop the construction of another such installation on Avenida de Mijas, also because of its proximity to houses and because, they argue, it encroaches on part of a stream that runs down from the mountains to Fuengirola. In this particular case, the neighbours have even brought the case to the attention of the Ombudsman.

Although work did start on the petrol station on Avenida de Mijas, the construction has been halted by the council pending the company's presentation of the health impact study, something which should have been processed simultaneously with the granting of the building permit, but was not done. On analysing the documentation of the case in detail, the town planning department detected the absence of this documentation and decided to halt the work until it was resolved.

In the case of Torrenueva, the residents made it clear that they are going to "fight" as much as possible "to try to prevent the works from starting", the president of the community said. He explained that they are already working on the necessary permits to install a large banner at the entrance to the urbanisation to reflect the residents' rejection of the project.

"Moreover, it is a low-cost chain petrol station, i.e. self-service, an infrastructure that will not even generate any jobs," he added.