The latest meeting of the local governing board said that the Torrevieja City Council had sued Leroy Merlin in the Administrative Court of Elche for giving the go-ahead to develop a Bauhaus store in the La Hoya region. In Spain, Leroy Merlin’s biggest rival is Bauhaus. Councillor Federico Alarcón, who is also the secretary of the governing board, made it clear that this legal action does not, in principle, stop Bauhaus from building if it starts, nor does it ask for any safety measures. The councillor didn’t say what the company’s reasons were for opposing the city’s decision.
First choice
The first appeal against the municipal licence went to court because Leroy Merlin thought that the proposal had not gone through the required public consultation process. The court agreed with them and took away the permission until the consultation procedure could happen. Finally, after going through the whole process again, Bauhaus got the licence and can start building.
Last November, the Torrevieja City Council gave the go-ahead for the building of a Bauhaus DIY store in the La Hoya urban development region of Torrevieja. It also gave the green light for plans to establish two supermarkets, one of which would be owned by the distributor Consum.
These businesses, along with others that are still being processed, will all be located in a strip of 100,000 square meters of tertiary use that is being built in La Hoya, next to the CV-905 road, between San Luis and Jardín del Mar-Doña Inés. This strip is part of a macro-urbanisation project that will include more than 7,000 homes.
The multinational Bauhaus has already had to wait more than a year for the project to be approved and construction to begin. This is because Leroy Merlin, another company in the same field that has two stores in Orihuela Costa, appealed the first licence given by the City Council in August of last year and was able to have it revoked in court, which meant that the whole process had to start over.
In August 2024, the Torrevieja City Council gave Bauhaus its first big development permit for one of its commercial centres. The project will take place on a 40,000-square-meter plot in Sector 20 – La Hoya, which is now being developed. The buildable area is 18,000 square meters. The site sits between the new José Carreras Avenue and the roundabout at the entrance to the sector, near to the stormwater retention basin. Last October, when it rained a lot, water spilt over into what will be the parking lot next to the store.
Meeting
In September 2024, the mayor of Torrevieja, Eduardo Dolón, met with Bart Ginneberge, the head of the company, and several of his team. They took a picture of the meeting at City Hall before removing the licence and restarting the process.
The mayor said at the meeting that he was “grateful that Torrevieja had been chosen for the opening of one of its establishments,” which “will create many direct and indirect jobs.”
First in Alicante
The German company is a top expert in items for home improvement, hardware, DIY, workshops, and gardens. It has 250 stores and is in about 20 countries, most of which are in the European Union, but also in Turkey and Iceland. It employs 17,000 people. There are twelve of these establishments in Spain. The Torrevieja store will be the company’s first in the province of Alicante. Leroy Merlin, on the other hand, has two locations in Orihuela Costa.
Author: Derek Appleton
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