Nine reasons why . . .

2. INFRASTRUCTURE STRENGTH

In the 1950s this land was one of small fishing villages and unchanging rurality - olive groves, oranges and lemons, avocados and goats. By the 1970s the Costa del Sol's virtues had been 'discovered' by large numbers of holidaymakers (from abroad and from within Spain) and 'development' was proceeding apace. In fact, it proceeded faster than the infrastructure could support. The resulting situation was characterised by utilities services unable to cope with demand, nightmarish legal tangles, risks and delays, and terrible road communications.

Today, the fishermen are still here, and so are the farmers and market gardeners. Goat herders are nowadays somewhat thinner on the ground. But the infrastructure is now truly excellent; this is a fully - reliably - functioning part of the modern world. Water, electricity, drainage, telephones and similar underpinnings are as available here as they are in Surbiton. There are brand new motorways and upgraded trunk roads, and there are good rail connections and bus routes.
The Costa del Sol general area also includes two significant commercial ports - Malaga and Gibraltar - and eight pleasure craft marinas (**eleven including Gibraltar's). Arrivals at Malaga port rise year on year and in 2004 270 cruise ships docked, carrying 200,000 passengers.
Europeans seeking a 'place in the sun' can be as reassuringly civilised and comfortable here as they are in Stockholm or Dublin. (Except that it's warmer).

Infrastructure Improvements and Plans

Marinas
The demand for boat and yacht berths is enormous and greatly exceeds the current availability. Not surprisingly, there are a number of projects to expand existing marinas and build new ones. There are reliable plans to develop one complete new marina (at La Cala) and double the capacity of Fuengirola and Benalmadena marinas - a potential additional - strongly demanded - 2,000 berths beyond the 5,000 (**5,750) already in existence.

Enlargements - effectively doublings in size - are planned for Benalmadena and Fuengirola marinas and a new marina is planned for La Cala. A proposal to provide a marina along the sea front of San Pedro has been well received and looks to be given the go ahead. The facility will comprise 500 berths and will represent a far more attractive alternative to the overcrowded (and expensive) Puerto Banús. Gibraltar has lost one of Europe's most well-known marina-boatyards - Shepherds - but a proposal to build a large marina development on the east side of the Rock has recently received approval. The Australian developer is the same one that is building the new Wembley Stadium.

Roads
A new motorway junction is planned to serve La Cala - it is indicated on the Mijas Council development plan map. San Pedro is famed for its traffic jams and there have been plans for an underpass since the 1980s. Despite recent disappointment because it appeared that the new central government was not planning to find a rapid solution to the problem, it has been announced that funds for the project are to be included in the state budget for 2005. It is hoped that when the construction work is under way, drivers will be able to use the toll motorway free of charge until the tunnel is completed, although this has not yet been confirmed.

Railways

For information about the new coastal railway, click here.

Málaga's Metro rail service is scheduled to begin operating in February 2009. Further details have been revealed about its operation and cost. Trains will run every six minutes at peak travelling times, every ten minutes at off-peak times and every 15 minutes at night, and tickets will cost less than one euro per journey. The metro will be a great incentive to drivers to leave their cars at home and commute into the city, and about 17 million passengers are expected to use the service in its first year of operation, increasing to 21 million within ten years.

The Malaga-Seville high speed AVE train line project will cost more than 500 million euros and will reduce journey time to an hour and a quarter from two and a half hours. Some 54 million euros have been set aside in the regional government’s 2005 budget for the line and work is due to start. The Junta de Andalucia estimates that the new line could be in operation in 2008 or 2009 and that 2.5 million passengers will use it.

In 2005 the Ministry of Development will invest 90 million euros in the Bobadilla-Granada line and improvements to the Granada to Almeria line. In addition, the EU will loan 1 billion euros towards the cost of constructing the 155km high-speed line between Malaga and Cordoba, expected to be complete in 2007.

Four high speed projects: Cordoba-Malaga, Bobadilla-Granada, Bobadilla-Algeciras and Seville-Malaga, mean that the village of Bobadilla is to become the central nucleus of the Andalucian railway network. With key stations at Puente Genil and Antequera this puts the inland area even more on the location map of development potential.

Hospital
The new master plan for Mijas municipality includes a hospital, to be shared with Fuengirola. It will be built in the area of the Myramar shopping centres between Las Lagunas and the seashore.