ARCHIVED - Inconclusive meeting between Paramount boss and Alhama de Murcia Mayor

No news of any progress regarding the Paramount theme park in Alhama

A long-awaited meeting at last took place on Monday between Diego Conesa, the Mayor of Alhama de Murcia, and Jesús Samper, managing director of Premursa, the company in charge of promoting the proposed Paramount theme park in the municipality, with the chief topic of conversation being the state of play regarding the stalled project. 

Although it was important that this meeting should at last take place – it is the first since Diego Conesa took office in June this year – it has to be said that little or no positive news emerged from it. During the conversation Sr Samper explained the difficulties being experienced in interesting investors in the Paramount project, and mentioned the possibility of altering it to include tourist apartments rather than hotels. However, according to Sr Conesa, this suggestion was made informally and there is no documentation available regarding the idea. 

In any case, the Mayor added, before such alterations are considered Premursa still has other obligations to fulfill in its relationship with the Town Hall. This is a reference to documentation which was required of the company on 9th February this year, and which will now be demanded again after Sr Conesa decided to wait until after meeting Sr Sámper in person out of courtesy. Without receiving the documents required the Town Hall cannot issue building licences for Paramount.

Should the documents not be forthcoming in a period of three months the procedures by which the land at the proposed site for the Paramount project was to be re-divided will be considered abandoned. The fee paid by Premursa will be returned to the company and the case will be considered closed, and if this doesn’t represent the final nail in the Paramount Parks’ coffin then it would certainly mean going back to square one. 

An additional item pending on the long list of actions not carried out by Premursa is the payment of a 3.8-million-euro deposit to the Town Hall in respect of the administrative procedures which would need to be carried out by the Urbanismo department if the Paramount Park and Lifestyle Center are to go ahead. Despite Sr Samper’s protestations to the contrary, this scenario is now looking increasingly unlikely. 

The developer closed its offices on the business park in the municipality recently.

Mayor Diego Conesa appears to have maintained a hard line in his conversation with Jesús Samper, but also pointed out to him that the local PSOE party which he represents has always supported the Paramount project in principle, and that Premursa has been cordially invited to take part in open discussions with the Town Hall and with other developers in the municipality. At the same time, though, he made it clear that the company will be treated like any other by the new local government, and that if it fails to meet its obligations the consequences will be the same as for any other business.