The project to beautify the Rio Chillar riverbed in Nerja is apparently now 50% complete.
The €3.9 million project, funded by the Junta de Andalucia, EU funds (75%) and the Municipal Council (25%), was started last year and is now just over 50% complete. The riverbed is on the outskirts of the town, but as the town has expanded quite dramatically in recent years, it has encroached upon the urban nucleus and therefore it was decided to tidy it up. It will also now be a flood prevention system in the event of heavy rains.
The project includes a narrow river channel, now very deep, with cycle paths, bridges and landscaped banks.
Problems of one sort or another have ensured that progress has not been as swift as originally intended. Work has been carried out in fits and starts after an initial bout of enthusiasm and then, on September 21st last year, Nerja was hit by a devastating storm. Most of the huge boulders lining the riverbank were washed away, machinery was buried and in the area near the Verano Azul park, the channel was widened by about five metres by the flood waters.
This meant that the project basically had to start again from scratch. Still to be done is all the landscaping, construction of pedestrian and cycle paths and the building of bridges, but the current prediction is that the project will be completed by the end of the year!