PLANS to resuscitate a project to build a 1,300 home urbanisation in Pego have suffered a major blow after an environmental impact study carried out 11 years ago was voided.

The regional secretariat for Ecological Transition says the study is ‘null and void’ as there was a five year limit for work to start at the Pego Golf site.

The secretariat added that the issue of planning permission is a different matter and comes under the Valencian Urban Planning department.

As previously reported by the Olive Press, Pego council asked for applicants to put in bids to develop the Pego Golf area covering 1.62 million square metres.

It received one submission from Denia-based CHG which owns and operates the Oliva Nova Golf resort.

The site was approved for construction in 2005 but a deal with a developer was not struck until eight years later, but nothing happened despite a positive environmental impact study being conducted in 2012.

The project was formally ‘moth-balled’ in 2020 before being resurrected late last year.

A MOTORIST had a day to forget when police pulled him over in El Altet- close to Alicante-Elche airport.

The 41-year-old man was spotted by an Elche Policia Local patrol behind the wheel of a car that appeared to be in poor condition.

Officers stopped the vehicle to check it out and saw that the ITV vehicle safety test sticker was out of date.

That was just the start of the driver’s problems as a strong smell of marijuana was detected in his vehicle.

The man was given a breath test which showed him over the limit for alcohol as well as confirming that he had consumed narcotics, with 26 grams of marijuana discovered on him.

The charge list lengthened when the motorist was asked to produce his driving licence and gave police a document from a Balkan country.

The officers suspected that it was a forgery and the driver admitted that he had bought it.

He was arrested and taken to a police station ahead of a court appearance.

BUDGET air carrier easyJet will open a seasonal base at Alicante-Elche airport in 2024.

It will be the airline’s fourth base in Spain with the company saying it will create 100 new pilot and cabin crew jobs.

The airport will be home from spring 2024 to three A320 aircraft each with a capacity to carry 186 passengers.

Alicante-Elche joins two other seasonal bases at Malaga and Palma de Mallorca along with the all-year facility in Barcelona.

The company said Alicante-Elche was the airline’s most popular Spanish destination that did not have a base.

The operator first flew into Alicante in 1999 with a connection to London Stansted, and has transported 27.5 million to and from Alicante-Elche airport since then.

easyJet added that it plans to increase summer seat availability to Alicante by 16% compared to this year with a capacity of 1.62 million seats, which includes links to other European cities including Amsterdam and Geneva as well as British locations.

The Costa Blanca Tourist Board has criticised the lack of flights for UK travellers this summer as schedules were announced over a year ago when the Covid-19 pandemic was still an issue.

They’ve claimed that UK visitor numbers could fall by as much as 200,000 over the high summer season compared to 2019.

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