ARCHIVED - Green light given for re-development of Cabo de Palos shopping complex

The Las Dunas centre has been empty and abandoned for over a decade

The long-lasting attempts to create a new shopping centre in the Las Dunas area of Cabo de Palos moved a step closer to a successful conclusion last Friday when the Town Hall of Cartagena approved a proposal to re-classify 20,000 square metres of land in order to make commercial and industrial activity possible there.

The proposal met with the support of all political parties represented on the council of Cartagena except Unidas Podemos-IU-Equo, who abstained, and Vox, who voted against the motion, following a period of a month in which any objections or suggestions regarding the planned re-classification could be submitted. With only one such suggestion having been received the motion now goes ahead after a procedure which has taken over three years and which has included environmental impact assessments among other things.

One of the most significant aspects of the re-classification is that it directly affects 3,800 square metres of retail premises which currently lie abandoned but where refurbishment and trading will now be allowed. A further 7,471 metres of building land is available for construction in order to serve the interests of larger stores.

It is now over a decade since there was last any activity at the disused shopping centre of Las Dunas, and in 2017 the project to re-activate it was halted by the Town Hall of Cartagena as a consequence of the 2012 Land Use Plan being annulled, meaning that the permitted usage of the land reverted to that specified in the previous document dating from 1987. Prior to that it had seemed that Las Dunas was on the way to re-opening when work began on a new roundabout on the RM-12 dual carriageway next to the shopping centre, but the regional government then decided that the project was flawed and progress ground to a halt.

It took another two years for the proprietors’ association of Las Dunas, which financed and organized the roundabout project, to win over the government departments of Culture, Development and Tourism, effectively overturning the objections which were raised, and it is now anticipated that within a year work to knock down one wing of Las Dunas, restore another and build large warehouses will begin.

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