Loro Parque to appeal ruling that annuls plans to build Siam Park in Gran Canaria

The Loro Parque group are to appeal the Supreme Court ruling that annuls the Plan for Modernization and Improvement in the area of ​​El Veril in Gran Canaria, which was approved by the Canary Islands Government and includes the construction of the Siam Park water park in Maspalomas.

Their legal advisor, Jaime Rodríguez Cíe, has explained to the Efe news agency that, although he abides by the decision of the court, the company does not share it and has reminded that they already had two other previous sentences that "endorsed the plan", which has now been annulled for a missing report of the Insular Council of Waters of Gran Canaria on the availability of water resources for the redevelopment.

Specifically, the TSJC is missing a study on whether there are enough water resources to meet the new demands arising from this action, which includes the construction of a water park, a hotel, a restaurant and cafeterias.

Rodríguez Cíe maintains that, even though the incorporation of this study is necessary, as indicated by the Chamber, it is a “rectifiable defect that should not lead to nullity”, so it understands that the appeal could have been partially upheld and required the plan to be completed with the aforementioned report.

In the other two judgments, that affect the water park to be built, no reference was made to that aspect, added the lawyer, who insisted that this is not a sufficient reason to "overturn an entire management plan" and that he was surprised by the ruling of the TSJC court.

According to Rodríguez Cíe, the resources are similar and that question was already raised because the Plan for Modernization, Improvement and Increase of Competitiveness in the area of ​​El Veril is part of the granting of the concession of the Insular Council of Waters of Gran Canaria, since it is the channel in the area where the park is to be built from a ravine.

Likewise, he has considered that this new “element of the water resource” is not necessary in a file of this nature and has remarked that there are two favourable judgments for Loro Parque that rule on the management of El Veril.

In addition, it has pointed out that there is sufficient jurisprudence that allows that, if an action is rectifiable, the appeal can be partially estimated and the administration is urged to complement what is necessary.

For Rodríguez Cíe, this new ruling represents an "incongruity" with respect to the other two decisions of the TSJC and generates "legal uncertainty about the planning", because the Second Section of the Administrative Litigation Chamber based in Las Palmas, should have assessed that there were two previous rulings that approved the legality of the project.

The lawyer has insisted that the reasons are the same; they had the "same elements, the same file, the same procedures and the same parts."

The TSJC confirmed the license for the first works of the Siam Park in Maspalomas in 2018, in a ruling in which it considered that destroying "an arid ravine" already encased by a highway "is the price to pay" for the development of the area.

The Canary Islands high court thus ratified the sentence handed down by the Contentious Administrative Court number 4 of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, against the appeal filed by Ecologists in Action against the license of the San Bartolomé de Tirajana City Council that allows Loro Parque to start channelling the El Veril ravine, in the south of the island.

The TSJC then underlined that it was not for them to assess the "opportunity" or "economic-political convenience" of the construction of the Siam Park, something about which they recalled that the Canarian Government and the Cabildo de Gran Canaria had already made it clear to just check if the licenses and authorizations comply with the legislation, and added that the work had "all the favourable reports" necessary for it to be carried out.

In another subsequent ruling, in 2018, the TSJC revoked the judge's order that provisionally suspended the concession of public lands to the Loro Parque group in the south of Gran Canaria to build the Siam Park, in a decision that corroborated the public interest of that water park.