Alex Trelinski
POLLENCA council has provisionally fined a company for demolishing the interior rooms of the Hotel Formentor without having a licence to do so.
The initial sanction against Inmobiliaria Formentor is €293,919 but a fortnight is available for the firm to make a challenge.
New Pollenca mayor, Marti March, said in June: “We want to clarify the whole process which has not been very transparent and has generated a lot of criticism”.
The Hotel Formentor was regarded as one of the most ‘chic’ hotels on Mallorca and council planning officials gave permission for the new owners to carry out renovations.
The hotel which boasted guests like Winston Churchill, the Dalai Lama, Charlie Chaplin, and Elizabeth Taylor, started being demolished late last year.
Pollenca council says that licences granted to the hotel owners for its reform and expansion made no mention of demolition which was aimed at providing all rooms with a sea or forest view.
A council statement said that despite the clarity of the licences, ‘the building’s interior was demolished in 2022 which resulted in a breach of current urban planning laws’.
In October, the council ordered the suspension of any demolition but the bulldozers went in anyway.
There has been no comment from the hotel’s owners who are said to be spending €25 million on the makeover.
It was announced in March 2021 that the hotel would reopen in 2023 with 110 suites offering sea and forest views.
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