Does Groby need a Cesar Manrique?

A look at the need to protect our open spaces

April 2009 For just a few euros you can enjoy a coffee served with cake and a spectacular view from the top floor bar of the Gran Hotel in Arrecife. The view of the coast nestling under a volcanic backdrop isn't just spectacular, for Lanzarote it's unique, as this 16 storey building is the only tower block hotel on the island. All the other hotels are low rise and this makes Lanzarote stand out from its near neighbours in the Canary Islands.

One man seems to have been largely responsible for stopping the tide of high rise tourist development before it was too late, Cesar Manrique. His vision and influence dominates the island. He was born into a middle class family and initially studied at Tenerife's La Laguna University but left after two years. In 1945 he travelled to Madrid to the Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando. In 1964, Manrique travelled to New York where he stayed until the summer of 1966 as the guest of Waldo Diaz-Balart, a Cuban painter, who lived in a neighbourhood of artists, journalists, writers, and bohemians. Later he was able to obtain a generous grant which allowed him to rent his own studio and produce a number of paintings which he exhibited with success in a prestigious New York gallery. He was a sculptor, artist, and architect.

But he longed to return to his birthplace and when he did he started his campaign of awareness, encouraging the people of Lanzarote to respect their traditional architecture. He argued that islanders shouldn't demolish their houses, or the parts of them that were in bad shape, to build a garage or to extend with unsympathetic materials instead of wood. He also convinced the Government of the island to ban the use of billboards on the highways and landscape. High-rise buildings were banned and houses and apartments are whitewashed with green or blue woodwork. In 1978 he won the World Prize for Ecology and Tourism. His influence lives on.

So how does this relate to Groby?

At the time when Manrique was formulating his ideas about how to stem the worst excesses of mass tourism in Lanzarote the JCBs were clearing the fields around Groby for the first major extension of the settlement boundary. Four decades later the village is at bursting point with virtually all the available building land accounted for. More housing is proposed, travellers sites are being debated, and long awaited but as yet unfunded infrastructure improvements are being talked about. Virtually the only available land within the settlement boundary left undeveloped is the amenity and recreation land held effectively held in trust for future generations.

At the moment there is no suggestion that any of this land should be given up to go under bricks and mortar but this situation could change, and the Chairman of the Parish Council has spoken in the past of the need to find ways of putting Parish Council land beyond the reach of those who might wish to take or develop it. There are those in the village who believe that the current exercise to produce plans for the next 20 years is ambiguous enough to generate uncertainty where residents want certainty.

So perhaps Groby needs a Cesar Manrique, someone persuasive with vision who will find the way to secure the future of your parks, open spaces, allotments and amenity areas for the generations that follow us.

First published in the Groby Spotlight April 2009