It has been an apple in the developers' eyes for several decades - a ring-road from the gas-station heading south designed to relieve the pressure on the thin two-lane beach-road with its many attractions, turn-offs, roundabouts, cyclists and zebra crossings.
The first problem, back in the early nineties, was a painfully rare plant called the limonium estevei that only grows there (but nowhere else in the world). The obscure plant is also known as the Mojácar Sea Lavender. The other point was the beleaguered tortoises (which, in point of fact, are doing just fine around here).
Thirty years ago, the leader of the local Izquierda Unida, Carlos Cervantes (who later became mayor) managed to stop the plan for the road by more or less standing in front of the bulldozer.
He later showed me some limoniums - growing in the sand over by the Cruz Roja on the beach. I remember he gave one plant what could only be described as a fond kick.
The ghastly project found its way to Seville (PSOE in those days) and was squashed.
Now we are back. The land where the new road, most of which was built last summer - and to hell with the limonium - has now been secured for planning permission, and we can only wonder who has been buying it all up.
It seems that the road can't be finished since the Junta de Andalucía won't allow it to go down to the sea (rather a disappointment for all those vehicles which had been diverted from the road along the playa). Indeed, it is planned to stop at a narrow roundabout below La Paratá and then filter down a miserable lane to the Gaviota. The several roundabouts completed along the way will no doubt find their use in the seasons to come.
Of course, if the new hotels, apartments, restaurants, clubs and souvenir shops are all built, then there'll be a lot more traffic creeping along our beach road and elsewhere. Maybe they'll put in a tram.
From Ideal, The Mojácar PSOE (there only seems to be one of their councillors active) has complained of the mayor, Francisco García's, "mismanagement". The party believes he is "on track to plunge Mojácar into debt over a 'useless' road". It seems that 'fresh expropriations' are necessary, leaving the town hall and its taxpayers some 7.5 million euros out of pocket (plus another three million already spent). "The result is now a useless, dead-end road that will turn the end of the route into a traffic bottleneck and a monument to waste", says the PSOE.
