The Accidental Historian

The first golf course in the Balearics was opened in 1934. This may surprise you, though any of you who might have read something I wrote for Alcúdia tourists last summer about this golf course would not be surprised.

The “revelation” of the first golf course comes from “Mallorca Magazin”, the German weekly. This, in turn, is based on a study that has appeared in the “Jornades d’Estudis Locals d’Alcúdia”, a dry and academic tome that is published irregularly but which is a gold mine of fascinating historical information.

I first came across this journal purely by chance. I was whiling away some hours at a printer and found it in a book case. Though all the papers were in Catalan (a pre-requisite for the inclusion of papers in the journal) and were all, in typical academic fashion, highly off-putting in terms of presentation, there was stuff within its covers that demanded a bit of perseverance.

It helps, I guess, to be both a historian by degree and to have had a previous publishing life in which I was fed a diet of heavy academic material. For many, irrespective of the language, the journal would be a complete turn-off. Understandably so. Even in English, much academic publishing might as well be presented in Klingon, for all the sense that it makes.

The copy I found, which remains the only copy I have seen, included a paper on the history of the fiestas of Sant Jaume, the patron saint of Alcúdia. It was one that transported you back to the thirteenth century and to the origins of the fiestas. It was a story that was completely new to me.

The story of the golf course was also new to me. Again, it was something I came across by accident. The article I was writing was in fact an interview with someone who has a far longer association with Alcúdia and Mallorca than I do, Graham Philips, estate agent of the parish. During the course of the interview, Graham explained that there was once a golf course in Alcúdia (and not the present one in Alcanada). It was short-lived. The Civil War led to its being converted into a landing-strip for airplanes.

Unexpected as the story was, I asked around to try and find any other recollections of the golf course. There was as much surprise as I had felt when told about it. Someone though spoke to an old man, and he confirmed the story. He could recall the planes that flew in and out of what is today the residential and tourist area that combines Alcúdia’s Bellevue and Magic districts.

The golf course history comes apparently from the sixth edition of the journal. The seventh will include something on the British squadron in Alcúdia (and Pollensa) in 1924 and something else on the application of “the model of tourist enclavement” in Alcanada in 1933. Both are potentially interesting and of far wider interest than the narrow audience that an academic publication appeals to. As with the history of the golf course, the development of a tourist area in Alcúdia’s Alcanada area is precisely the sort of thing that grabs tourists’ interest.

One of the problems with the portrayal of Mallorca’s history, and it is a problem that is compounded by the historical information that is put out by the tourism agency and town halls, is that it tends to all be pretty ancient. In Alcúdia, the default historical information is that of the founding of Pollentia by the Romans and the Moorish occupation and the consequent naming of Alcúdia from the Arabic. It’s not without interest, but it isn’t that relevant to most tourists who are turned on far more by recent history, such as the development of Alcúdia and the island as a tourist destination.

There is a wealth of historical information – documents, photos – that sits in archives in the town halls. Alcúdia’s journal is not unique. Most towns have these studies and they come under the umbrella of the university. Yet it rarely comes to light, and when it does is in forms, the largely impenetrable language of academia and in Catalan alone, that simply do not translate to an audience which is hungry to hear about it.

And when you come across it, it is usually by chance. There’s another example; the time I found the original 1936 article from “The Railway Magazine” about the planned extension of the railway to Alcúdia (which of course has still not been built). But this, the railway, is another subject with the potential to fascinate.

The point is that, for all the desire for tourism attracted by Mallorca’s history and culture, far too little attention is paid to what really can excite or to what can be more understandable to a tourist market – that to do with tourists’ own experiences: of tourism. This more recent history, that of tourism development and the changes brought about by tourism, exists in archives and in people’s memories.

It really needs to be made available.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Crazy Golf: Too many courses in the Balearics?

Where do you go in Spain to have a quiet round of golf? The Balearics. Whole courses uninhabited by the one thing they should be inhabited with – golfers. Golfers of a local variety that is. Ignoring overseas players, a survey by the information company 11811, reveals that there are fewer registered golfers on the islands, relative to the number of courses, than any other region of Spain. The finding is slightly misleading as a further discovery of the survey is that the number of registered players per head of population is the sixth highest in the country. But what really gives the game away regarding how unused courses are in the Balearics is the fact that there are more courses for each and every resident of the islands than anywhere else in Spain.

The revelation as to the low numbers of golfers is nothing new. In April 2008 a different survey came to the same conclusion. Golf, far from booming, seems to be standing still. Is the relative unpopularity of the sport among residents, however, important in the wider debate surrounding golf courses? Local golfers are really only a sub-plot to the main story of golf tourism, but the fact that they are spread so thinly across the islands’ courses – 387 registered players per course – represents a weakness in the “home” market and raises the question as to whether Mallorca and the islands need more courses.

A year on from that previous survey, the Balearics business confederation (CAEB) issued its own report which stated that as many as five more courses were needed in Mallorca alone. These were courses, it said, that were necessary for the development of golf tourism, and it received support from the then tourism minister Miguel Nadal. The support was not unexpected; Nadal’s party, the Unió Mallorquina, has been cast, alongside the Partido Popular, as the devil of golf expansion by both the left and environmentalists.

The arguments advanced by CAEB for the islands as a whole are those echoed in the endless row regarding the development of the Muro golf course. These are well-rehearsed arguments: higher-value tourists; diversification of the tourism offer; a means of countering tourism seasonality.

The problem with these arguments is that they are just that – arguments. What invariably seems to be lacking is evidence as to what more courses would actually mean in terms of increased tourism. One would hope that a business confederation could be capable of presenting a sound business case in favour of more courses, just as one would hope that the Muro course developers could do the same. If so, then where is it?

Beyond the claims and the prospects of some employment being created, the pro-golf lobby has failed to win hearts and minds by pointing to serious numbers. Were it to, then it might do better in the propaganda war with the anti-golf lobby, bolstered recently by a report from an international organisation (the Ramsar Convention on wetlands) which recommends that Muro should definitely be scrapped because of the environmental impact. Furthermore, it is the no-to-golf side which attempts to come up with figures that dispute the yes-to-golf’s arguments.

In September the environmental watchdog GOB produced what it reckoned was proof that golf does nothing to increase low-season tourism. Based on hotel occupancy figures, it argued that were there golf tourism demand in the likes of Alcúdia or Pollensa then hotels would be open, which with some exceptions they are not. It wasn’t proof because GOB had overlooked non-hotel accommodation and figures from November to March, but it did nevertheless suggest that the quieter months of April and October did not show any real benefit from golf tourism.

Though tenuous, GOB’s findings do deserve some attention, while more rigorous research for the off season would not go amiss. And to these findings, we have to take into account what appears to be the lack of a bedrock of support for golf in the local market. One wonders to what degree, if at all, the apparent unpopularity of golf is a reflection of the environmental case. It would also be interesting to know how many of the registered golfers in the Balearics are foreign residents.

What do local people think about the development of new courses? Are they ever asked? In Muro a flavour of opinion was evident in October last year when townspeople demonstrated against the possible demolition of the bungalows in Ses Casetes des Capellans. One prominent banner read: “A golf course is for the rich. Capellans is worth much more”.

Local demand for golf is only part of the equation, but it cannot be overlooked. If one takes Muro’s course, what might this demand be? Excluding the population of neighbouring Alcúdia, where a course exists, the combined population of Muro and its other neighbours – Santa Margalida, Sa Pobla, Búger and Llubi (where there are no courses) – is around 35,000. Extrapolating from the figures in the latest survey, this would mean a course that might attract 260 registered players. 260 across five towns. It doesn’t sound like much of an argument for building a golf course. You would need an awful lot of golfing tourists to make it work. An awful lot of golfers that no one seems able to put a figure to. Crazy.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Ryder White Swan

All sports are, at a basic level, absurdly simple. Football – bloke kicks ball into net. Cricket – bloke hits ball with a bit of wood or bloke hits bits of wood with ball. Golf – bloke hits ball with a stick into a hole. They cease to be simple when they become tangled up with jargon, statistics, strategies, tactics and, with some, the sheer length of time they take. Someone once had the bright idea for golf that rather than a bloke hitting his ball with a stick into one hole, or five or seven or eleven, he should do it eighteen times. In the process, he came up with the most tedious sports spectacle known to man.

My resentment of watching golf is based largely on having once been abandoned on Sunningdale’s course by my father and his mates who had escaped to the beer tent while I was left to get soaked to the skin following a player who may or may not have been Tony Jacklin; it was hard to tell through the rain. It was a short and irrational pitch from the misery of a drenching to a lifelong condemnation of golf-spectating as mind-numblingly dull.

Except when it comes to the Ryder Cup. It has entirely to do with team sports. There’s something in that CV stuff you get presented with and the modern mantra of finding “team players”. You simply file in the bin anyone who under interests and activities lists chess (mad), boxing (mad with violent tendencies) or golf (mad with an obsessive disorder). No, you look for those who will willingly hurl themselves against an eighteen-stone lock forward as evidence of common sense and the placing of the team before their own mortality. In the same way, you look for a team event to ignite the passions of collective spectator identification and involvement.

It’s only when golf does team play that it becomes interesting. Not just interesting, but also unbearably exciting and tense. Which is the Ryder Cup all over. And no more so than when McDowell was coming down the seventeenth.

But what is it about the Ryder Cup? The team, after all, is an amalgamation of individuals from different countries, an all-star twelve engaged in what Rory McIlroy had described as an exhibition. Yet a patriotic spirit rises to the surface, one which makes it possible to be supportive of a totally useless German for heaven’s sake. Maybe it’s all to do with putting one over the Yanks and their full metal jacket whooping.

For all this though, the Ryder Cup is not like football. Does it pack the bars of Mallorca – the Swans, the White Roses – with face-painted, flag-waving, replica-shirt wearing “Europeans”? For starters, what flag are you supposed to wave? What shirts are you supposed to wear? Who really wants to go around pretending they’re Miguel Angel Jimenez by having his name on their back in the way they would a Rooney or Gerrard? The odd Spaniard perhaps, celebrating the fact that golf can permit a cigar-chomping vision of non-health and efficiency in the way that only golf can – think such porkers as John Daly and Craig Stadler. But otherwise the local sports shops aren’t suddenly going to stock up with juniors’ and seniors’ Westwood or Fisher shirts.

Then there’s the singing. “YOU-ROPE, YOU-ROPE.” No one can do it with conviction because no one is really sure what they’re supporting. It’s a false identification that hides the temporarily submerged nationalism of an “inger-land, inger-land”. Do you get groups of lagered-up lads in the bars giving it large with a Europe chant? Because golf takes so damn long and thus goes way beyond the average tourist’s 90-minute attention span, do you get anyone bothering to spend several hours in a bar when there is something else to do – like sitting around the pool?

The answer is – remarkably – that you do. The bars do get taken over. Why? Because the Ryder Cup is one of the most remarkable sporting contests known to man. It totally transcends the tedium of a normal golf event, it does indeed have the power to mould an unlikely European nationalism. And it comes down to the fact that sport is very simple. Not just in how it’s played, but in the fact that one team wins and one team loses. And guess which team won.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Adopting Positions: Chopin should have played golf

Chopin is to be made an adoptive son of Mallorca. No doubt he’ll be rubato-ing with contentment in his Parisian grave, well away from where his interred non-missus, Amandine Dupin (aka George Sand), will be cursing the fact of his joining her in adoption but rejoicing in her having secured the gig before him; she was made an adoptive daughter of Mallorca some years ago. Beat yer to it, Freddie, you sexual inadequate.

Chopin and Sand were simultaneously enchanted and appalled by Mallorca, and specifically Valldemossa. It’s the enchantment that gets hyper-brochured, alongside mentions of Chopin’s output while in his mountain retreat and of Sand’s legacy to the island, commemorated in the annual Winter in Mallorca cultural programme, named after her book. The selective writing of the history of the Chopin-Sand stay in Mallorca disguises the brevity of that stay and the deterioration in Chopin’s health during it, a consequence of a miserable and cold winter. How he actually managed to play the piano, rubato or otherwise, is a mystery. Or perhaps he was blessed with warm extremities. Well, a couple if not one other, if George is to be taken at her word.

Chopin was from Poland. It’s a happy coincidence. Name some of the “new” markets from which Mallorca hopes to attract more tourists, and Poland will appear high on the list. Having an adoptive son to boast about doesn’t presumably harm that objective: the tourism juan-ies should be frantically casting around for a few Russians or Chinese who might have some adoption credentials, other than members of the Russki Mafia or owners of shops in a Mallorcan McDonald’s style – the Chinese bazar; one on every street.

While Chopin and the not-missus Chopin are invoked as part of the island’s cultural and winter tourism, they might have greater contemporary impact had they played golf. Perhaps someone could conveniently unearth a 170-year-old pitch ‘n’ putt in Valldemossa; it would do wonders for the golf tourism project. Possibly. Golf, though, holds the key to greater off-season riches than piano playing. Or that’s what they would have you believe.

It’s doubtful that Chopin ever made it as far as Muro or the north of the island. But it is here that the battle for golf tourism is being waged – as if you weren’t aware of this already. Muro’s golf course development is going through yet another eighteen holes of it’s on, then it’s off; the promoters threatening to sue is the latest. Not, I imagine, that you care. No one much does any longer, except the main protagonists, one of which is the enviro doom merchants GOB.

The pressure group has been playing its own statistics game. What it has found, it reckons, are figures which “prove” that golf doesn’t do anything to bolster tourism off-seasonality. I had hoped that the figures would be proof, as at least it would have been evidence of someone making a hard case one way or the other as to whether the Muro course, or indeed others, are of any significant tourism value.

The statistics show that in the lower months of the “summer” season, i.e. April and October, occupation in hotels in Muro and Santa Margalida (for which, read Playa de Muro and Can Picafort) is higher than those in Alcúdia and Pollensa. From this, GOB argues that golf does not benefit either of the latter two resorts, ones where there are golf courses extant, while it also argues that Muro and Can Picafort are already doing nicely thank you by comparison, and therefore, by dubious extrapolation, don’t need a golf course (or courses). It then goes on to extol what are the highly limited business virtues of small niche tourism in the resorts, e.g. bird-watching.

What this argument overlooks is the fact that the early-season occupancy of hotels in Playa de Muro and Can Picafort can be explained by these resorts being centres of cycling tourism, more so than the other two resorts. By concentrating on hotel occupancy figures, it also neglects the fact that Pollensa has a far lower number of hotel places by comparison with the other resorts. Nevertheless, and notwithstanding the fact that golfers might stay in other types of accommodation (and GOB doesn’t take this into account), the findings do underline a point that I have made in the past, which is precisely the one that GOB is implying. Were there real tourist demand for golf in Alcúdia and Pollensa, then more hotels would open. Wouldn’t they?

GOB’s argument is persuasive up to a point, but there is one big hole in it – there are no figures for the months of November to March. The seasonality issue is a twelve-month affair. Winter tourism, or the lack of it, cannot be defined in terms of April and October. Which brings us back to Chopin and Sand. Has anyone ever attempted to prove a link between Winter in Mallorca and winter tourism? Maybe they have, and they’re keeping schtum. GOB’s claims are based on some science, but they seem post-hoc. However, they are not without a dash of merit. There ought to be more science, but one suspects that certain vested interests would rather there weren’t.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The Mother Of Development: Muro, Ullal and land policy

The ongoing farce that is the Muro golf development shows no sign of pulling its trousers up from around its ankles and closing or keeping open, once and for all, the bedroom doors through which the two sides chase each other – the developers sniggering as they lay another trap and rile the environment ministry which would most likely prefer to take a horse-whip to the unfaithful miscreants.

The bee-eating bird has flown or has, at any rate, completed its procreation, and the developers have once more sent in the diggers. They’re over there! Where? Over there! In march the agents of the ministry, brandishing an order to stop them. It’s an area of bird protection. On no it isn’t. Oh yes it is. Though the developers dispute the protection area order, they have skulked off, for the time being, leaving the ‘dozers dozing in the summer heat. The government has “paralysed”, for the time being, the clearance work. (Incidentally, given that the bee population is threatened and that its demise would represent an ecological catastrophe, why are we so concerned with this damn bee-eating bird? Let it fly off and nose-bag some worms. But I digress.)

The way in which the developers promptly resumed their developing once the bee-eater had finished its was like a bunch of naughty schoolboys, blowing raspberries at the back of the class while the teacher’s back was turned. Right then, who did that? Not us, sir. Oh yes, it was. And of course it was. The developers have been despatched to the head’s study for six of the best, or would be were anyone sure that they had done anything wrong. They say they haven’t. Perhaps they had thought that the August hiatus would have meant they could plough up great tracts of finca without anyone noticing because they’re all on holiday.

The whole thing is a farce, in the same way as much other land conversion is farcical in that necessity rarely appears to be the mother of development. As I have asked many times, has anyone ever actually made the business case for the course being needed? Environmental issues notwithstanding, the biggest beef of opponents is that the course represents private business interests over all others. It’s the same beef being given a good larding where the projected Ullal development in Puerto Pollensa is concerned. Are the houses and apartments really necessary? Maybe they are. Or maybe they are just a case of private interest prevailing. No one has much objected to Lidl’s supermarket rising up from the asphalt of what was Karting Magic in Puerto Alcúdia, but is it really necessary? Eroski would say not, and are apparently going to close at least one of their supermarkets. All good in terms of competition, but is it the right sort of land conversion?

Ullal, Lidl and others all fall under a general land plan for Mallorca, one overseen by the Council of Mallorca which could, one supposes, still block Ullal, though it seems unlikely as it has, in effect, released the land. The golf development, on the other hand, isn’t a facet of this land plan as it is an issue for the regional government. Which all begs the question as to who is overseeing developments and as to whether there exists sensible, joined-up policy. And talking of sensible, the demolition of the Don Pedro hotel, which is covered by the land plan and which has been approved by the Council (which refers to the hotel’s “infamous invasion” of beach), is supposed, along with the demolition of the Rocamar in Puerto Soller, to lead, in return, to a new hotel being built. Where? In Cala San Vicente? In Puerto Pollensa? In Soller? No. In Sa Rapita. On the southside of the island. Go figure.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Suck It And See: The golf course in Muro

Never think that matters in Mallorca draw to a simple conclusion. If you are inclined to think this, then consider the matter of the Muro golf course. Yes, the arguments are of course still going on. What appeared as though it might have been a conclusion, when a bird protection order was made to cover the site of the course, is nothing of the sort, and now the Balearic parliament, thanks to block voting by the centre-right parties (Partido Popular and Unió Mallorquina), has effectively given the development the green light again, the right arguing that the course is in the interest of the island. The left say it is all about private interests, while the enviro lobby group GOB reckons the decision will bring “shame” to the people of Mallorca. The protection order might still hold sway, but if so it will, in all likelihood, need the matter to be booted upstairs, all the way to Brussels. Some 14 years after the project was first talked about, a definitive agreement and indeed conclusion is still to be made.

Something interesting has been happening with the press coverage of the golf development. There have recently been two interviews with the head of the Grupotel hotel chain, one of the main shareholders in the golf course, as well as one with the director of the development company. This has been interesting as the coverage suggests a shift away from what has seemed like press favouritism towards the environmental case. Or perhaps it is just a case of greater balance being applied. The arguments set out by Grupotel and its fellow hotel groups are well known: the course will help to reduce tourism seasonality and to add dynamism to tourism in the area; the development has received favourable environmental reports, and potentially harmful environmental issues have been addressed.

Despite the endless environmental points raised by GOB and the left, the environment is not, for many, the most important issue. What is, is whether the damn course is necessary or can be justified in terms of “adding dynamism”. The pronouncements in the interviews have been vague, as has always been the case where the real value of the course is concerned. The PR problem for the developers is two-fold: the environment and a persuasive business argument. They have singularly failed to be persuasive. No assessment is ever made, at least publicly, as to how many additional tourists the course will generate or as to how much value it will bring to the local economy, except in creating a small number of jobs.

There is an inherent lack of logic to the business case. Firstly, the developers cannot count on a return from the sale of real estate, which is often a core feature of golf developments; there will be no residential construction. Secondly, while making his case for the course, the director of the company pointed out that the Muro course will have advantages over other local courses – unlike Pollensa, it will have eighteen holes, and unlike Alcanada, it will not be a luxury course. However, though this hints at a course for everyone, is a “luxury” aspect not part of a course’s attraction, especially to hotel groups with four- and five-star hotels in their portfolio? Moreover, whatever might be designed in Muro can surely not benefit from the landscapes of Pollensa and Alcanada or the demanding links-style nature of the latter course. Thirdly, there are several hotel groups represented in Playa de Muro which are involved in the development. How can they all benefit, especially as there is seemingly an unknown, and a very important one – the number of tourists?

The course would add to the intangibility of the “quality” of Playa de Muro as a resort. This shouldn’t be underestimated, but it is – once again – a somewhat vague concept, just as the real benefits of the course remain vague. Rather like the so-called “active well-being” branding of the area that is now to be initiated seems like an exercise in sucking it and seeing, with no hard numbers being given and any number of hotels which would be most unlikely to gain any benefit, so it is with the golf course. In business terms, the Muro course has all the feel of being product-led. Here’s a course, now here come the tourists. It doesn’t work like that.

As ever though, the business case for the course might still be redundant if GOB and the left were to finally have their way, and given the tortuous nature of the arguments and challenges over the years, one really shouldn’t rule that out.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Protect The Birds: End of the line for the golf course?

Have we come to the end of the Muro golf course saga? Almost certainly not, but the latest development is intended to put an end to it, once and for all. Or so it would seem.

The Balearic Government has approved the widening of a zone of special protection for birds, currently applied to the Albufera nature park, which will take in the Son Bosc finca where the golf development is planned. There is still a suggestion that this is not definitive, though it’s hard to see how it isn’t. From the reports, the word “inviable” stands out. Swap an “in” for an “un” and you have the English.

Ever since the change at governmental level which saw the environment ministry pass to the Mallorcan socialists, putting a stop to the golf course has been high on the agenda. A previous order seems not to have done the trick. Now comes the protection of birds one.

One can, with a degree of certainty, predict that those in favour of the course – the developers (i.e. Muro hoteliers) and the town hall – won’t take this lying down. It could well end up in the courts.

There is nothing in the least bit wrong with the extension of this protection, but the move smacks of finding anything behind which can be hidden what is surely the real impulse – that of politics. Why is this extension being sought now? The politics of, essentially, right versus left are so transparent as to be laughable. But if this is to be the end, then for God’s sake let it be the end. It won’t be.

Elsewhere in Muro, down on the playa, two vivid lime-green t-shirts loomed amongst the sunbathers the other day. They were being worn by two chaps who tramped across the sand up to where there are chalets by the beach, one of which has been abandoned for some years (a photo of which is on the HOT! Facebook page). One chap stayed in front of the abandoned building, just looking at it, while the other walked on a bit, looked at the other chalets, walked back, took his mobile from his pocket and gestured to his companion. They walked away. On the back of their t-shirts were the words “Demarcación de costas”.

What did it all mean? Maybe nothing, but the Costas have had their eye on Playa de Muro for a while and on buildings that may or may not have the right to be where they are.

Finally. Greatly removed, but the Moat thing has been given only little prominence by the Spanish media. Compare this with the coverage by the UK media. Rather extraordinary, rather like unfolding events during wars, listening – at a distance – to Five Live as the man on the riverside holds his gun and is surrounded by police. How extraordinary the analysis of when nothing much happens, the analysis of the situation and of the man himself. And how extraordinary that Gazza turned up. Which brings us back to the World Cup. Sunday will be mental. Like Gazza.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Sign Here: Petition against the golf course

I’ll forgive you for switching off now. It’s the golf course – again.

Still with me? Ok, here goes. All manner of political wrangling has occurred since the subject last appeared on the blog. The might of the centre-right (the Partido Popular and Unió Mallorquina) has combined to pass a motion in parliament to the effect that the Muro course should go ahead, as it is in the interest of the island for it do so. The left has retaliated by attempting to get the Son Bosc finca brought under the auspices of the Costas’ authority, that which “protects” the coastal areas. This despite the fact that the finca isn’t actually by the coast. There is also the matter of the bee-eater bird that breeds on the finca during the summer. This, in itself, is enough to bring any work to a halt.

More than the political to-ing and fro-ing, the environmental group GOB has been soliciting tourist support for the finca to be included as part of the protected area of the Albufera nature park. At the weekend it got tourists coming into Albufera – some 400 or so – to sign a petition against the course. These tourists were then also told about the hotels who were behind the development and given a card to deliver to their hotels (assuming, presumably, they were ones involved in the project) in support of the anti-course position.

What good, frankly, does this do? For one thing, it has the effect of driving a wedge (sand or otherwise) between guests and their hotels. Maybe GOB hopes that the petitioning tourists will go to a different hotel in future. Or a different resort, thanks a lot. Or that the hotels suddenly think: “oh my God, 400 tourists, we must abandon all thought of a golf course”. One imagines not.

Getting some nature-admiring tourists to put their mark on a petition would hardly have been difficult. Visitors to Albufera are, pretty much, a captive market for an environmental campaign. Easy-peasy. One doubts that the tourists were given a balanced argument to consider. Of the 400, nine, apparently, admitted to being golfers, and only one of the nine, a Mallorcan, declined to sign the petition. GOB, as stated in the report from “The Diario”, reckoned this was “curious”. It might also be that the Mallorcan knew a bit more about the story – from both sides.

What was curious about the report was that there was reference to there being hotel companies behind the golf development, but it did not identify them. Why is there such a reluctance to name them? GOB does. Go to its website, and you can discover, under Golf Playa de Muro S.A., the names of hotels associated with Grupotel, Garden and Iberostar. It’s common knowledge in the public domain.

Right, finished that bit, you can switch back on again now.

Still with an environmental theme, let us turn, shall we, to pollution from vehicles, in particular that from buses. And one bus in particular.

Driving along the main road through Puerto Alcúdia yesterday, I was forced to slow down and drop back, for in front was a bus belching out rather unpleasant fumes. You’ll know the one I mean. Blue, tourist, sight-seeing. What a splendid advertisement this is, and how splendid for those that advertise on the bus. Come take a trip around the sights of Alcúdia and hopefully the fumes will blow – volcano like, one might also hope – in the opposite direction; otherwise a no-drive zone should be declared.

To be fair, this is not the only bus that offends in this way. When the older buses get pressed into public service during the season, there are some frightful old boneshakers billowing bluey stuff in their wake. So if you happen to see drivers putting many a metre between themselves and a bus, you will know why. Perhaps pedestrians should be issued with face masks.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Porn-(ge)-ography: Muro’s golf course stopped

Well, what a surprise. The change in regional government that has created the “super” ministry of environment, planning and transport under the control of a single minister, the PSM Mallorcan socialist “Two Jags” Vicens, has indeed had ramifications for the golf course in Muro – as anticipated (20 February: Mallorca’s Two Jags – Muro and the golf course). The ministry, and therefore government, has approved the extension of a planning restriction order involving the Albufera nature park and much of its surroundings, such as the rustic beach of Es Comú in Playa de Muro and the area of Son Bosc, the finca designated for the building of the golf course; an order aimed at stopping changes to the Playa de Muro geography. This order, known as a “Plan de Ordenación de los Recursos Naturales” (PORN), has been welcomed by the enviro pressurists, GOB. They really ought to do something about their acronyms.

The ramifications of this extension are that work on the course has to be suspended, for at least two years, while studies are undertaken into the area’s natural riches and into its preservation. This comes hard on the heels of the publication by GOB of a letter from the leading British botanist, Richard Bateman, which expressed his “incredulity” as to the “destruction” of the finca and which also drew attention to the existence of a fungus that is vital to the maintenance of the rare orchid, which has been the subject of most of the environmental debate related to the golf development.

Incredulity indeed. Incredulity that further studies are needed. It is debatable whether they are needed, other than as a convenience of politics. The PSM, and Two Jags, don’t want the course to go ahead. It’s as simple as that.

Initial clearance work had begun on Son Bosc. The developers (and also the town hall) don’t necessarily see the ministry’s intervention as definitive, and they are probably right. Hanging over this decision is the possibility of an early election for the regional government. It would have to take place next year in any event. Were there to be a change in governmental complexion (with the Partido Popular restored as leaders, which is quite possible), then there is every chance that this latest delay could be reversed. It was the PP which, back in 2003, effectively removed protection for Son Bosc.

So you see, it is all a matter of politics. The new studies are a red herring. The development comes down to the wishes of the PP (and the Unió Mallorquina) against those on the left, the PSM most notably and what has become almost its provisional wing, GOB.

At the same time as the town hall and mayor Fornés were arguing that work on the course should proceed, as reports from the environment ministry had given the development the all-clear, the local authority was also announcing that it has formalised the purchase of the bull-ring in Muro from the entertainment company, Grup Balañà. It will cost 450,000 euros, and the decision to purchase the site has caused consternation among opposition politicians, aghast at such an investment, given the town hall’s supposedly parlous financial situation.

Why is the town hall doing this? There is an argument that the bull-ring is part of the local heritage and so deserves to be preserved. Fair enough, it dates back to 1922. But how often is it used, and for what? There is a bull-fight during the Sant Joan fiesta in June each year, but otherwise the stadium is largely redundant. The town hall insists that there will be more events, such as concerts, but then it would say that. The town hall also believes that it is a tourist attraction and one that would be added to a “tourist route” in Muro. Who are they kidding? Muro does have some attractions, but it barely features on the tourist list of places to visit as those attractions – the church, the museum for example – are poorly promoted. Maybe the town hall reckons that the golfers would make a trip into the town (some ten kilometres from Playa de Muro). That would be wishful thinking. And moreover, no-one has ever actually stated what sort of numbers would be generated by this damn course.

The bull-ring, the golf course, they are both symptomatic of a tendency to conjure up fantasy tourism, maybe-tourism. And in the case of the bull-ring, it is also representative of something – the bull-fight – that is being rejected by increasing numbers of Spaniards and that is abhorrent to many overseas tourists. Heritage, yep, fine, but the ring also occupies some not invaluable real estate near to the centre of Muro. Of course, if the town hall were to acquire it now, then maybe it might become more valuable in the future. Now there’s a thought. Or, if you were a town hall that needs to raise loans, then it is always useful to have some assets on the balance sheet. And which town hall needs to raise loans – allegedly?

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Mallorca’s Two Jags – Muro and the golf course

So much for confident statements. On 29 January I said that work on the golf course on the Son Bosc finca in Muro would start in two weeks. It hasn’t. Maybe it will do so next week. Despite the payment of the tax to the town hall, which was seemingly the final obstacle overcome, there are now further twists. Oddly enough, neither of them seem to have to do with the environmental pressure group GOB. One twist comes from the socialist opposition at the town hall. It says that the developers have not, as they should have, submitted to the town hall the modified plan for the course, one that takes account of changes to the development in order to preserve aspects of the flora and fauna, notably the rare orchid that grows there. This runs counter to the assertion by the mayor that everything was in order to allow the works to proceed.

The second twist has to do with changes at regional government level. Although it was being said that the work would start within those two weeks (meaning that it should have started already), there is now a suggestion that a decision to proceed next week is somehow being rushed. This has to do with a possible change of heart at regional government level. And why might this be? Never more than a short pitch and then a putt away from controversy, step forward the Unió Mallorquina. Or rather, step backward. The decision by President Antich to make the UM, as it were, miss the cut and smack it out of the coalition with a driver had ramifications at the environment ministry, the authority that had to give its final blessing to the project and which did so despite the allegation that it ignored a negative report by its own officials. The ministry was, until the UM’s dismissal, under the control of the UM and specifically Enviro Man, Miquel Grimalt. He was one of the ministers who lost his job as a consequence of the fracture within the coalition. The UM out of the way, Antich decided to merge the environment ministry with that for transport and planning, a ministry run by the PSM Mallorcan socialists (a member of the so-called Bloc) in the form of our old chum Biel Vicens, he who made the supposedly unsanctioned reclaim walk at the Ternelles finca in Pollensa and who was at loggerheads with Alcúdia’s former mayor over the siting of the railway.

In combining the ministries, Vicens has assumed a position and a series of responsibilities not far removed from those that John Prescott once had as part of his “super-ministry”. “Two Jags” Vicens we should maybe start calling him. Like Prezza once seemed all-powerful within New Labour, so Vicens has assumed significant power. He has said that he will look at ways of avoiding the golf course work going ahead and he is also on record as having voiced his objections to the course in the past; hence the apparent panic to get the bulldozers in smartish before he can stop them.

What this highlights is one of the faultlines of the coalition. The change in political colour at environment could mean the reversal of a previous decision, but this would not solely be because of competing environmental ideologies. It would also be a reflection of the battle between the PSM and the UM for the nationalist political soul of Mallorca, albeit one from opposite political positions on the left-right divide. Where the PSM sees something stamped with the UM name, it opposes – as with the Alcúdia train – and vice versa. Moreover, there is a possibility that work could indeed start at Son Bosc, only for Two Jags to wade in with an order telling them to down ‘dozers.

Just when you thought they’d finally come to an agreement, something crops up. Son Bosc and its golf course is the story of Mallorcan politics. This way, that way, and maybe something will happen. Or maybe it won’t.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.