Alex Trelinski
PLANS to convert an old American military base into a migrant reception centre have been scrapped due to the dilapidated state of the buildings and opposition from residents.
The facility at Aitana is over 1,500 metres above sea level and is the highest point of Alicante province.
The government trumpeted last year that around 600 people would be taken in by mid-2025 with the help of €25 million from a European Union grant.
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The Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security, and Migration u-turn revolves around the condition of the buildings, with a much higher budget needed to repair them.
The department also said that residents of the Alcoleja municipality had mobilised themselves to oppose the development over its ‘environmental, urban, social, and economic impact’.
It added that there was a good chance that the centre would be the subject of a legal challenge, which would result in a delay and running out of time to use the EU money- which would have to be refunded.
Alcoleja campaigners said that the project was presented as a ‘done deal’ to them by their local council and that the area’s infrastructure could not cope with a new migrant centre.
The drafting of the project to renovate the buildings had already been put up to tender with a winning bidder liable for compensation after the government decided not to proceed this month.
The Aitana site entered service in 1960 as one of 13 Air Surveillance Squadrons set up in the country via an agreement between the Spanish and US governments.
The site was abandoned over nine years ago with the barracks consisting of eight buildings which would have become a ‘Centre of First Arrivals’.
It was claimed that the project would have created 60 new jobs and 100 indirect jobs in the Alcoleja area.
