Ladies and gentlemen, introducing in the red corner, Arona council weighing in with a 4 million euro beach renovation project, and in the blue corner, a cute little old Canarian lady with a beachfront house, undefeated on a 24,000 euro valuation. Let the contest begin.

Actually it’s getting quite near the last round. The 4 million euro project in question is the ongoing renewal of the front at Los Cristianos, and the house is No 3 Paseo Maritimo, half way along the old beach. At first site it may seem run down and deserted but Casa de Laureano, has a tv aerial and power lines and is plumbed into the main drainage system. It’s been in the same family for generations and is far enough away from the shoreline to be outside the law of the coast and cannot just be demolished, so the council are trying to buy it.

The current bid stands at 24,000 euros but it must be worth more than that, and as the occupant is old and partially disabled , it would cost loads more to get somewhere as central and away from steep hills. The council are confidently predicting that a solution will be reached by the end of June, personally i’d say good luck to her, push that price as high as possible.

In the meantime, other work is going on at the old Los Cristianos beach behind the house. The sand is being dug up and turned over as part of a cleaning operation and a few truckloads of sand were dumped on Los Tarajales beach, further on towards the Arona Gran hotel. Back on March 24 I did a post on here about a 12 million euro council project that had been announced to give Los Tarajales a long promised new look over the next 2 years, that would include new headlands, rock pools and breakwaters to protect the new beach. Sadly the stop gap measure isn’t really working as the beach wasn’t cleaned or levelled first, the back walls are still covered in graffiti and with no protection the sand is just washing straight out. Maybe the promised long term solution will come about, once they decide whether or not the old houses, illegal under the law of the coast, will have to come down.