The Alicante City Council has opened a file with the owner of the Ferrer Tower, located on Licia Calderón de La Condomina street, by the bad condition of the site, which is full of dirt, with remains of bottles and animal droppings, and with the walls full of graffiti.
The building is declared an Asset of Cultural Interest (BIC) and, as such, the responsibility of demanding its care falls on the Cultural Heritage and Museums area of the Ministry of Culture. Put in contact with the Ministry on Thursday, he indicated that until today, Monday, he could not give information about whether there is any file opened by the state of the monument.
The lower part of the tower is in poor condition, with the building, restored in 2009, in disrepair. To the stone wear join the numerous painted on some historic walls from the 16th century.
The site keeps, if possible, a worse state. The animal droppings They surround the four walls of the tower. To these are joined dozens of bottles and cans of drink that people place on the ground as if it were the yellow container. The walls of the site that shelter the tower are full of graffiti in every nook, and the ground itself is neglected, with the bushes trying to make themselves present in the space.
The tower is one of 19 that belongs to the “Torres de la Huerta” Network of Urban Trails, which includes other private properties such as those of Reixes or Bosch. According to the Spanish Association of Friends of Castles, there were 22 towers of this type, although three of them no longer exist.
Subsidiary action
Municipal sources ensure that, for the City Council itself to take charge of cleaning, the owner has to receive a dozen fines. At that time, the Consistory could act ex officio and clean the area, transferring the invoice to the owner. However, they assure from the City Council that, being a BIC, they could only take charge of the surroundings, not the monument itself, whose responsibility lies with the Ministry of Culture.
This BIC is surrounded by the urbanizations of the area, that make it difficult to realize that it is there. Centuries ago, the tower was used as a refuge for the workers of the orchards from the attacks of the Barbary pirates.
The defensive tower of the garden dates from the 16th century, although in 2009 it had to be restored due to its poor condition. In 1982 the attached house was demolished and now only the tower remains standing, on a tiny lot on Licia Calderón street. It is listed by the City Council’s Network of Urban Trails as a building with “good visibility” and in a “good state of preservation.”
Las Torres de la Huerta, in danger due to their conservation
The Torre Ferrer is one of the 19 that belongs to the “Torres de la Huerta” Network of Urban Trails, all of them located between Santa Faz and La Condomina. La Ferrer is one of the 7 that is cataloged by the Alicante City Council as a monument with ‘good visibility’ and ‘good condition’, despite the fact that reality is far from this label. These towers were built during the 16th and 17th centuries in the old Alicante orchard, which was watered through a complex system of ditches by the waters of the Tibi reservoir.
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Eddie is an Australian news reporter with over 9 years in the industry and has published on Forbes and tech crunch.