News papers in Ireland and UK are reporting that up to 22 hotels in Lanzarote, are facing demolition arising out of alleged planning corruption. Anyone got a full list of the hotels?

TAKE IT EASY THIS IS LANZAROTE!!!
Things won't happen overnight but here is the link and it's content,

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/ma ... travelnews

Britons planning a summer break to Lanzarote may struggle to find somewhere to stay after a court ruled 22 hotels were illegally built.

The Canary Islands supreme court has annulled the hotels' building licences after it was ruled that two councils had openly flouted a ban on building hotels. Lanzarote council will now consider whether to grant an amnesty, or send in the bulldozers.

A police unit which fights organised crime has been called in to investigate whether the former mayors of Yaiza and Teguise granted illegal building licences in return for backhanders from property developers.

The police investigation comes amid fears of a repeat of the widespread civic corruption scandal that led to the dissolution of Marbella city council in 2006.

In Lanzarote, eight five-star hotels, 10 smaller hotels, and four others under construction were declared illegal. In all, they account for 7,721 hotel rooms or apartments on the island. Top-of-the-range hotels that could be pulled down are the Meliá Volcán, Iberostar Papagayo, Gran Castillo, Natura Palace, Rubicón Palace, Papagayo Arena and Son Bou.

The court action follows efforts to gentrify the image of the holiday island beloved of British tourists. In 2000, authorities limited the number of new hotels and those few that were to be given permission had to be four stars or above.

But officials at Yaiza and Teguise councils ignored the limit and granted licences for thousands of "tourist places" or holiday accommodation, investing €270m (£212.1m) of public funds. The EU granted €36.5m to 11 of the hotels now ruled illegal to boost tourism on the island.

Carlos Espino, a Socialist Lanzarote councillor, said: "These councils broke the order which we had put in place to preserve the island, which is a biosphere reserve. We will not have an amnesty. We will knock down what we have to."

Business groups on the island say pulling down 22 hotels will leave hundreds out of work and hit the tourist trade hard.

Instead, authorities may bring in an amnesty in the same way as the council in Marbella did when it discovered thousands of illegally built hotels and homes, many belonging to Britons.

In Marbella, an international police investigation was launched into claims of civic bribery, cronyism and embezzlement. The mayor, head of urban planning and police chief were arrested and property worth €2.4m was seized.

Instead of demolishing scores of illegal properties, authorities ordered property developers to hand over rural land to public ownership.

The court action against the illegal hotels in Lanzarote was taken by the council and the César Manrique Foundation, which is named after the late architect who helped to ensure there were no high-rise hotels or garish advertising hoardings on the island.

Manrique's influence went a large way to ensuring the Canary island avoided the same fate as the concrete jungles of the Costa del Sol or Costa Blanca.

More court cases are expected to follow against other hotels on Lanzarote.

I accept it won't happen overnight. I have been holidaying in PB for past 4 years and at the marina end of the harbour strip area, is a derelict building site boarded up since I arrived. 'Twould be nice to see a list of places, that we could plan holidays well in advance, rather than book and have dificulty thereafter.

Dont mean to be ignorant and maybe im wrong but Aren't Travel agencys licenced and so to are the likes of Lastminute.com So if you buy a holiday from them and say a hotel closes down or a Airline company goes belly up like what happened to Irish Air after 2 months then they carry insurance to reimburse you or offer you a replacement of your choice and this is why they have be licenced. I cant quote other countrys but this would be the law in Ireland and im sure the Uk travel agents wwould have something similar bbut failing this when you are booking you can ask the question is this one of the affected hotels and they are legally obliged to tell the truth. Also as overhere has said if and a big if they knock them down and surely they are thinking that if they do this then it will affect employment, tourism and taxes? Im not aware of the spanish laws or anything and wont even try quote them but hopefully they will think of the long term and short term impact this would have.

They´ll discuss it for 10 years, think about it for another 10 years, then go to bar ´cos they´re fed up talking and thinking about it.
But at least they would have done something about it!

Jeez thats good coz if you were in Ireland they would spend millions holding a tribunal to investigate the tribunal that investigated the 1st tribunal

Hopefully the papagayo arena will still be there for our holiday at the end of July.

Don't worry hon... it'll still be there for you!

Elle xx

Thanks Elle i do hope so.

Any news on any of this ?

8 weeks today and we will be there.

Don't worry all hotels still intact!!
There is an article in the latest copy of Playa Blanca magazine with an interview with the town hall - I'll try and dig out a copy and give you their comments!

That would be nice Phil, cheers.

43 days to go.