Third Time Lucky. "Life is not always easy, but never give up is the word" Kenneth Gasque. (About Neill Morgan - Ironman TSO)

Dear Friends.

Life is not always easy, but never give up is the word.

Kenneth Gasque


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From: Neill Morgan [mailto:ironmorg@googlemail.com]
Sent: Sunday, March 22, 2009 11:36 AM
To: Kenneth Gasque
Subject: Third Time Lucky.

Hi Kenneth,

Good to see you the other week.

I thought that I would remind you of my minor story which I mentioned to you briefly in the Café Stop a couple of weeks ago.

I have loved coming to Lanzarote for a number of years, and even have a timeshare in Club LaSanta, and if all goes well when the time comes the plan is to retire there.

Anyway, I have completed 3 Ironman competitions but have always been nervous of doing Lanzarote, and eventually took the plunge to enter the 2004 race. Unfortunately I was sick at the special needs station at the top of Mirador del Haria, and was withdrawn from the race by the race Dr.

Then I wanted another go in 2008, and everything went well, until a few days before the start when I picked up a local bug and got a rather nasty chest infection. I was unable to climb the stairs without difficulty let alone do an Ironman race. Sadly, I had to withdraw from the race and hand my chip back on the Friday before the race.

I was gutted, 12 months of training, not to mention the expense etc.

So I am trying again, for the third time, and hoping that it will be third time lucky.

I am planning on seeing you at the finish line on the 23rd May, just a little word of warning though, you will have been standing there a long time before I get there J

Hope the preparations go well, and am looking forward to the race in May, shame I wont win !!!!!

Kind Regards

Neill Morgan

Meson Tiagua - Closed

Meson Tiagua, a favourite restaurant for TSOs in its day, now seems to be closed again.

New Development Update and Improvements

No more news on the new development, although there is the possibility of further information later this month. No further decisions on any major renovation programme of existing complex until after this.

Some information on improvements that may be of interest.

Renovations (complete rebuild)
2008 - 1 (Apartment 001D)
2009 - 2 planned at the moment

Facelifts (complete fix/paint/renew if damaged)
2008 - 99
2009 - similar number planned

Tower Staircases Renewed
2008 - 18
2009 - more planned

Improvements

2008
Electrical infrastructure (ongoing)
fire alarm/sprinkler system (ongoing)
New toilets and disabled by Sportscafe
Tourist pool island and "sunshades"
Doctor's surgery
La Casa/Atlantico Kitchen

2009
Handrails on walkway slopes (some in 2008)
New desalination plant (being tested)
Play Time - improvement of external area
Windsurf Station rebuild - in progress
Roof to the Square
Public toilets
Service Road resurfacing - in progress
Running track and facilities - major renovation starts 3rd May
Public sewer connection 24 x 7

Renovation of Stadium and the Tennis Courts

See earlier blog post for the dates for the atheletics track.

For anyone interested, the new track will be blue!

The tennis courts will also be blue, with green outside the white lines. Work is due to start on these around the second week in June, once the stadium is finished.

Week 53

Mesage from Club La Santa UK

Week 53 (2009)

As in previous occasions that we have had a week 53, the procedure is the same as before. If a timeshare owner owns weeks 52 & 01 you can exchange into 52 & 53 or 53 & 01. Week 53 can also be purchased at service fee cost if you wanted to make your duration a three week stay in total.

Please contact me as soon as possible with your exchange request, it can sometimes be difficult because of Danish or German weeks. I need to have made all TSO's exchange requests by the end of July 2009 rather than just the three calendar months as normal. If you could please email me on kathryn@clublasanta.co.uk or call me on 0161 703 5814 to discuss your requirements further.

Please note that timeshare owners of weeks 51 & 52 or those who own only one week are not entitled to exchange or take an extra week at service fee cost.

For timeshare owners that own weeks 51 & 52 and would like to book the week 53 - 31/12/09 - 07/01/09, we are offering an early booking discount rate off the AY's & AG's, these apartments must be booked by the 31/07/09.

Brochure rate AY - £857.00 TSO 51 & 52 owners only rate AY - £686.00
Brochure rate AG - £916.00 TSO 51 & 52 owners only rate AG - £733.00

Ambulance Station

Ambulance Station at end of lagoon.

This is now open for business!

I will try to get some more information.

Tourist Prices (UK) 2009/2010

PRICES FOR WINTER 2009/2010 ARE NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE AT www.clublasanta.co.uk.

**Please note apartments will go on sale on Tuesday 24th March **

Playtime - Improvements

Please see photos. The outside play area has been enlarged and made safer, with new flooring. Click once on slide show below for controls. Double click for larger photos/download.

New Development Rejected - Magazine Article

Extract from Lancelot Magazine 6th February 2009

A luxury project in danger

The obstacles to Club La Santa building a spectacular olympic village are abandoned as the inefficiency of the administrators is exposed, creating the risk that the project could be developed outside the island

The bureaucratic muddle and inefficiency of the public administrators, combined with electoral interests, could strike a death blow to a spectacular project, unique in Lanzarote, which, as everyone is agreed, would bring nothing but benefits to the island. The refusal of the Canarian Government to declare the initiative to be in the public interest, due to the inexplicable delay of nearly five years of negotiations on the part of the Council of Lanzarote, puts into checkmate the planned construction of a luxurious olympic village in Tinajo, attached to the present complex of Club La Santa. The solution proposed by the independent Executive is by means of the Law of Urgent Measures, with approval very soon, but those responsible at Club La Santa see no clear way out. “It is possible that there is no solution,” they say, and fear that the owners of the property, tired of so many delays and difficulties, may decide to make the investment outside Lanzarote.

An olympic village of 40,000 square metres, with two olympic pools, a multisports hall, aerobics court, squash and padel courts, golf training area, and 300 beds for renting to sportspeople. A dream? No, it is the spectacular and luxurious project which Club La Santa wants to develop next to its present complex, in the municipality of Tinajo, but which has run into the inefficiency and bureaucracy of the administrators who, through their own delays, have managed not to clear the way ahead for this initiative. The Canarian government has suggested a possible way of unlocking the project, but La Santa considers it highly questionable whether this option could be realised, and fear that the owners may tire of having waited so long, and move the project to another site or another country. If so, Lanzarote would lose the chance of being counted amongst the best sporting establishments, which in turn would create 100 new permanent jobs, as well as employing some 200 people in the construction, because in Lanzarote bureaucracy and inefficiency prevent even projects like this, with which everyone is agreed, from going forward.

“We don’t know how to explain this to the owners of the property, because in the Northern Europe they would not understand anything like this; what is happening is inexplicable,” stated the second in command and financial director of La Santa, Frederik Sohns, to Lancelot. He is furious about the delays and the refusal of a declaration of general interest. And although now there is a ‘chink of light’, he appears very sceptical about the alternative possibility suggested by the independent government for unblocking the project.

The process

The crux of the matter is that the plan for the olympic village on which the owners of La Santa have been working for more than a decade includes, as is logical, the creation of new beds to rent to visitors, to be exact 300 beds, but the moratorium in place prevents this. Since 2003 the Law of Directives of General Regulation of Tourism in the Canaries which, amongst other matters, established the application of exceptional measures concerning the creation of new beds, provided that the project had been declared by Parliament to be of general interest.

Club La Santa reacted immediately to this condition, presenting in the same year, 2003, their application for a declaration that the project was of general interest, to the administration where the procedures had to be initiated, that is the Council of Lanzarote. “We were the first hotel in all the Canaries to apply for the declaration of general interest” stated the financial director of La Santa, saddened to have seen how during the past years “they gave approval to loads of establishments, but not to us.”

What happened? And how was it that in the Council the application became stuck in a tangle of bureaucracy and inefficiency, together with party interests, and was not forwarded to the relevant office of the Commission of Tourism, until 2007. In May of that year, the application was approved in committee, despite the abstention of the PSOE and the PP. After that, many delays, since the matter was not transferred to the full Council until January 2008, when it was unanimously approved, for transfer back to the Canarian government, which is where the procedure should have been followed. But the independent Executive refused the declaration of general interest, on the ground that the relevant time for submitting the respective applications had expired, as laid down by the Law of Directives, in April 2006. That is to say, the file left the Council five years after it had been submitted by La Santa, and already delayed by a year and a half beyond the maximum permitted time for submitting it. “It is certain that where the matter remained stuck was in the Council, but that is not our fault” pointed out the club’s financial director, who in turn added that “since the time expired in 2006 for those exemptions laid down in the Law of Directives, there is a legal vacuum which does not seem democratic.”

The urgent measures

The Canarian government had published the refusal of the declaration of general interest relating to the project last Wednesday, 28th, one day after Club La Santa had made known its dissatisfaction with the delays in giving its responses. In the same communication, the independent Executive suggested that a way out of the situation might be sought under the Law of Urgent Measures, since “it provided solutions for hotel establishments such as here which are trying to carry out renovations and improvements.”

That law can be invoked at the stage of amendment of a pronouncement. It is hoped that it will be approved next month, in March, and promulgated in April. According to the independent Executive, it provides a suitable tool “to resolve the repercussions which this kind of circumstance can cause to employment and the economy,” in regard to these problems, so that the olympic village project can go forward.

The Law of Urgent Measures provides that in those establishments which are renovating their actual installations, one new bed can be created for each of the renovated beds. That would unblock the construction of the 300 beds planned for the olympic village project, since La Santa had intended the renovation of some 980 beds. However, there are other requirements which that imminent law imposes, with which it may be more difficult for the club to comply. One of them is that the complex should increase its quality as a minimum to three keys. “In many ways we already provide services equal to a 4 star hotel, but the tourist standards in Spain certainly require a minimum area in the rooms which we do not have in our present complex, which is more than 20 years old,” maintained the second in command at Club La Santa. “We could ask for an exemption, but that would involve initiating other proceedings, and a further year or two of delay” added Frederik Sohns.

Another requirement is that before commencing the construction of the new beds, the renovation of the existing beds should already have been done. “On the contrary, we were thinking we would begin the renovation of the rest after the new hotel had been completed, in order not to have to cease our activity for a time, above all to be able to maintain our present payroll,” explained Sohns.

“Nothing clear”

“We see nothing clear. The politicians always tell us yes, there are no problems, but there is nothing but delays. Moreover, it remains to be seen whether the Law of Urgent Measures will be in force, as they say, in March or April, because in July last year they said it was going to be December. Two months have gone by, and still nothing,” added the second in command at La Santa, who met at the end of last month, in March, with the Minister for Territorial and Environmental Policy in the Canaries, Domingo Berriel.

“What we most fear is that the owner tires of so many turnrounds and delays, and ends it by investing in another place,” warns Sohns. In that case, not only would the possibility disappear of counting on an olympic village which would be a cause for pride, but also the creation of 300 new jobs in the island would be stopped and, according to warnings from La Santa, another 150 of the 400 jobs presently held at the club would be lost, due to the “deterioration in quality of our product.” All in all, an exemplary project would vanish, and about half a million jobs.

* * * * * * * * * *

Frozen through excess of red tape and
lack of political determination
(Councillor Pedro San Gines)


The owner is justified in feeling annoyed, because they submitted the declaration of general interest to the Council a long time ago, and for reasons which did not concern them, the Council did not advance the process in proper time, blocked by the provisions of the Insular Plan. Thus reflected CC Councillor Pedro San Gines on Club La Santa’s olympic village project. He presided over the Commission of Tourism when approval of the initiative was finally given there, in May 2007. “If any project in all the Canaries was ever suited to the Law of Directives, that is La Santa. Since it did not get through because the file which the Council ought to have progressed was sent out late, that shows how even in matters of general interest and on which everyone is agreed, things can freeze through excess of red tape and lack of political determination,” added San Gines.

The CC Councillor also indicated that this matter reflects “the double talk of the PSOE,” because when the project was before the Commission, before the elections, they abstained, as also did the PP, pleading electoral reasons, and when it went before the plenary session, with the elections over, they changed the direction of their vote and supported the approval.