Seven Days

The good and the bad    
Magalluf seems fated. No sooner has the Bulletin’s front page told the good news of initiatives and investments on one day than the next day’s spoils the mood with more bad news.
On Sunday “Changing Face of Magalluf” reported a bold new holiday project for the area; on Tuesday came “Calvia Chief of Police Sent to Jail” reporting the arrest of the chief of the local police and two other officers on suspicion of extortion, followed up on Wednesday by “Calvia Mayor: If heads have to roll, they will roll.”
 The good news came in Humphrey Carter’s interview with Katy Sayburn who is Director General of a new luxury complex known as BH Mallorca which will open on 30 April next year. It is not unusual for those launching a new holiday project to claim that it will be something special never seen before but in the case of BH Mallorca this certainly seems to be justified -- “We realised early on that there is no one catering exclusively for the youth market. We aim to develop the first quality youth complex in the world here in Magalluf. We will be looking at the 18-30, or young at heart, market and aim to cater for their needs.”
The Grupo Cursach with over forty years of entertainment experience is behind all this with an investment of nearly one hundred million euros which it believes “will change the face and philosophy of Magalluf”.
The BH Mallorca’s plans for Magalluf are not the only large scale tourism developments there. It is remarkable that in what has been a very difficult year for the resort there are still several experienced companies making huge investments in the area.
In an article on the good-and-bad aspects of Magalluf in the light of the latest events the Bulletin’s editor Jason Moore made the important point that if Magalluf was a PLC it would be in the FTSE-100 since it accounts for almost five per cent of the total tourism revenue of the Balearics and as such should perhaps be run with a clear chain of command and perhaps even a special council committee.

Letters: Hire Cars, Santa Ponsa
There have been signs that new tourism legislation will cover the operations of car hire companies in the Balearics for the first time. It cannot come quickly enough. Complaints about “rip-off” practices have been one of the most frequent subjects of Letter to the Editor in the Bulletin. Too often, however, they are written in general terms and a “more in sorrow than anger” spirit.
Not so a letter from Alister Bottomley of Pollensa this week: “My daughter was married here in the north of the island and 104 people came from the UK to celebrate the event. 28 people rented cars and all of them were under the illusion that they had already arranged a totally comprehensive insurance only to be confronted with the scare tactics surrounding extras which were not covered.
The extra amounts were between 200 and 700 euros depending upon class of car and days of hire and left everyone with a feeling they had been ripped-off completely. I enclose a typical sheet which lists all the uncovered items such as clutch, engine, tow truck, lost rental days while the vehicle is being repaired amongst many others. This is an absolutely disgraceful practice and is doing our island’s reputation irreparable harm and must be stopped.”
Another Letter to the Editor this week was from Ian Rice who described himself as “a regular reader of the Bulletin for 30 years” and wrote as President of the Community of Eden Roc Santa Ponsa.” Santa Ponsa, like Magalluf, comes within administration by Calvia Council and Rice began his long letter by praising many of the improvements made by the Council but continued, “in the last ten years investment by the local authorities seems to have stopped and the area in my opinion is now in serious decline”.
The letter included many details of specific deterioration and of the difficulty of identifying responsible authorities but perhaps the most telling passage in Rice’s letter was this: “I am delighted that Calvia Council is now starting to take a stronger line on Magalluf, however my fear, particularly with the use of social media, is that other resorts such as Santa Ponsa could end up with the same problem that Magalluf has had with drunken young people.”
He called for an open debate in the Bulletin, in the hope that improvements can be made.

Calling Conservatives
With a general election next May looming in Britain every vote will count and the Bulletin reported that among the promises the Conservative Party will make is to end the cap of fifteen years for voting rights of British citizens living overseas which was introduced by the last Labour government. The Chairman of the Conservative Party, Grant Shapps, said: “Being a British citizen is for life. It gives you the lifelong right to be protected by our military and Foreign Office, and to travel on a British passport. We believe it should also give the lifelong right to vote.”
The Party also issued a call Conservatives Abroad groups to rally those with the current 15-year status to make arrangements to vote in next years’s election.

In Brief
As a new school term neared the Bulletin said that Majorcan education inspectors had reported that almost three-quarters of state schools are not ready to introduce the Balearic government’s controversial TIL trilingual curriculum.
    
The trial period of Palma’s Good Citizen Behaviour law ended successfully and is now in full application. Pet owners will be under observation and cycling on pavements could incur fines. At the same time, however, Palma Council said it had received 300 complaints about noise in August, the highest number in recent years. It is not clear where noise is covered by the new law.

The Crime Watch feature revealed that the Guardia Civil and Customs had located and seized 86,000 counterfeit items worth over 10.5 million euros. Among these goods were 5,437 towels, 46,822 hats and 6,368 flip flops.