The Superior Court of Justice of the Valencian Community has dismissed the administrative appeal filed by the City Council of Calpe in 2022 against the expansion of the fish farm in the bay of Calpe.
After the Regional Ministry of Agriculture, Rural Development, Climate Emergency and Ecological Transition rejected the appeal for reconsideration filed by the City Council in April 2022, the plenary approved in November of that year to file a contentious-administrative appeal against the resolution of the Autonomous Secretariat of Agriculture and Fisheries that allows the expansion of the fish farm that will go from 12 to 45 floating cages, as well as a maximum production capacity of 3,000 tons per year of fish.
The ruling of the TSJ considers that the environmental assessment of the project was correct and that the expansion of the facility does not have negative environmental effects, and considers that there was no omission of the Public Participation process in the process. The City Council provided a new study of the effects of the fish farm on the marine currents and a landscape impact study which, according to the ruling, “lacks the probative force to invalidate the analysis of the Landscape Integration Study of the competent administration”.
For the study of the effects that the fish farm may have on the local economy, another of the allegations of the City Council, it is considered that “the economic risks are not related to the authorization or concession itself, but to a potential impact on tourism based on possible damage absolutely hypothetical”.
Both the City Council and several Calpe associations such as the Real Club Nautico de Calpe, the Fishermen's Guild or the Association of Entrepreneurs of Calpe have shown from the beginning their outright rejection of the expansion of this infrastructure precisely because of the visual impact it causes in a tourist town like Calpe but also because of the environmental and economic impact. In fact, one of the reports on which the appeal presented by the City Council was based, estimated the losses that could be caused by a macro-farm of this kind in the town at 450 million euros.
The government is now studying the steps to be taken and continues to maintain its rejection of the expansion of this facility.