Oops. The road to the sanctuary that collapsed. | Archive

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In August 2007 a part of the road to the Santuari de Consolació in Santanyi collapsed. Ever since, there has been a row about who was responsible and should pay for the repair, with the town hall lined up against the owners of the Creu de Santanyi quarry.

It always seemed logical that the quarry, just a short distance from the road, was the reason for the collapse, but only now has the Balearic High Court definitively ruled that the owners and an engineer, who signed permits for the continuation of quarrying, are liable. The court has ratified a previous ruling that went to appeal. There is no possibility of a further appeal, and so the quarry owners and engineer face a cost of 1.5 million euros.

The town hall has convened a meeting for next week at which a start will be made to the project to restore the road. All parties have been asked to attend, and they include the bishopric. Because of the problems with access and the delay, the town hall and the bishopric worked on creating an alternative access to the sanctuary, although this only appeared eight years after the road collapsed.

Officials at the town hall established years ago that the quarry didn't have the necessary licence and that extraction activity caused damage to municipal property. A court was presented with these findings in 2012. The ruling then was that there had been illegal extraction and that the company should restore the road and the immediate environment which had been affected.