Negligence is being put forward as the most likely cause

A forest fire which broke out in Aigües, inland to the north east of El Campello, on Friday afternoon was officially out 24 hours later after destroying an estimated 20 hectares of land. The work to tackle the blaze was hampered by the high winds affecting the area, but it was brought under control by 9 on Saturday morning after three fire-fighting brigades spent the night at the scene attempting to prevent the flames spreading any further.

El Zorro was the ringleader of a prison riot in the 1990s where 8 staff were held hostage and an inmate was brutally killed

The ringleader of a mass riot at the Fontcalent prison in Alicante in the 1990s, which ended with one inmate being killed, has been transferred out of the province after four years in more or less total isolation. Antonio Cortés Escobedo is considered one of the most dangerous prisoners in Spanish jails, and will spend the rest of his sentence behind bars in Cádiz, at the prison in Puerto de Santa María.

The Valencia High Court is concerned about water supply to the thousands of new homes to be built in the city’s Plan Rabasa

The plan by Alicante City Hall to develop an area of more than 4 million square metres in the north of the city, the Plan Rabasa, has been halted by the Valencia High Court. It followed an appeal placed by central government and one of the main concerns in last Thursday’s ruling was over water supply to the 13,500 new homes which are planned as part of the development. The Plan Rabasa got the go-ahead from the regional government earlier this year.

The organisers claim that they are now being denied access to free health care in the Valencia region

British residents are expected to lead a demonstration tomorrow, Thursday, called for outside the British Consulate in Alicante in demand for free health care. Other nationalities are expected to join the protest as the group then marches to the offices of the Diputacion in demand that the promise of free access to health care be kept.

Minister for Development, José Blanco, visit the works on Thursday

Alicante airport, El Altet, is undergoing a modernisation program with a new terminal now expected to be open at the end of next year.

The new 333,500 square metre terminal will be eight stories high and host 26 boarding gates, and will allow the annual capacity of the airport to be increased from 12.2 to 20 million users. There will be 14 baggage reclaim belts and as many as 96 check-in desks. The new terminal will in fact become the new airport for the city.

His offence was a photo of the regional education councillor displayed with the words ‘Unwelcome Person’

The headmaster of a secondary school in Monforte del Cid faces a 20-day suspension without pay over a photograph of the regional government’s councillor for education, Alejandro Font de Mora, which was put up in the school lobby in November last year. The photo was placed on the wall upside down, with the words below it, in English, ‘Unwelcome Person’.

Nine new planes are to be based at the El Altet airport

Ryanair has announced new routes from Alicante which will link the city with Venice in Italy, Spanish cities Sevilla and Valladolid, Altenburg in Germany, Krakow in Poland, and Smàland and Stockholm in Sweden.

The company plans to start the new services at the end of March 2010 and also to strengthen some current routes from El Altet, Alicante. The Sevilla route will run on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays.

El Altet was the fifth busiest airport in Spain in October

The El Altet airport in Alicante has broken the national trend and grown to be the fifth busiest airport in the country, overtaking the Canaries. And it’s thanks to Ryanair and a high number of Norwegian tourists that October’s passenger numbers are good.

They believe the hypermarket and commercial centre included in the plans would be detrimental to their own trading

A meeting between Alicante business owners this week has decided not to accept the proposal from Ikea for a new store in the city. It’s planned as part of the Rabasa development project to the north of the city and, in the project presented by Ikea to the Alicante Mayor, Sonia Castedo, and the association which encompasses many local businesses last week would include a commercial centre for other stores and a hypermarket.

The 2 kilometres of section 1 of Line 2 cost 19 million Euro to build

Work to build section 1 of the second line for Alicante city’s tram system has now concluded, as confirmed to Diario Informácion this Sunday by the regional government’s department for infrastructure and transport. The department said just a few ‘finishing touches’ remain to be completed.

They may have both been dropped off by a larger ship out at sea

Police believe two patera boats which reached the coast of Alicante in the space of 24 hours could have both come from a mother ship which dropped them out at sea, leaving them to make the rest of the way themselves. It’s understood both boats were little more than 2 metres long and were powered by a small outboard motor.

An agreement has been signed to that end with the Alicante Mayor

An agreement signed by the Mayor of Alicante this week will allow the Swedish company, Ikea, to start construction of a new store in the Rabasa area in 2011. The agreement must be ratified by a council meeting, but Diario Información reports that in it, the Town Hall agrees to push through planning changes to allow construction to go ahead under the Rabasa Zoning Plan. The procedure for these modifications would normally take a year, but the paper said the Town Hall plans to get them all through by the end of October.

The Basque Country’s San Sebastián had the highest average rainfall in 2007

Alicante is officially the sunniest city of Valencia, according to the latest data released by the INE National Statistics Institute.
The sun shone on the Costa Blanca capital for 2,820 hours during 2007, with an average year-round temperature of 19.1 degrees Centigrade. Rainfall was also the lowest in the region, with 512.5 millimetres.

Toriano or Tito Jackson is to give a concert on July 17

Michael Jackson’s brother, Toriano, or Tito, is to give a concert in honour to The Jackson Five in the Teatro Principal in Alicante on July 17 as part of the Músicas del Mundo festival organised by the City Hall.

The high speed train line to Madrid will be operational in 2012

Work to bring the AVE high speed train line to Alicante in 2012 is to start at the end of this year.

The Avant company has organised a 77 million € credit to allow the start of construction in the first phase which is placing the line underground in the approach to the current station.