Is it so difficult for you to learn from Teodoro Sosa's success in Gáldar that he has brought all the large stores together so that they do not cannibalize small businesses? What the press calls a shopping center in Las Palmas is actually a hypermarket in the old Viajes Insular building, next to the Sea Side Hotels building, by a Lanzarote food company in the area where Alcalde Enrique Jorge street is. In Las Palmas it seems that they want to contaminate the south of the island from their commercial structure disaster, generating irreparable damage to small businesses. Or is it that a hypermarket comes to sell to a tourist who comes with TUI for a week?
In Tirajana there are 200 food stores, including supermarkets, grocery stores, butchers, bakeries and fruit shops in San Bartolomé de Tirajana. Traditional shops of the people of the south of Gran Canaria such as Frutería Herrera, butcher shop and bakery El Molino, La Herradura, Frutería Herrera Maspalomas, Frutería El Agricultor, Mercado Municipal de Tirajana or Mercado Agrícola de Tunte not to mention the Spar, Hiperdino, the Gordillo chain, Lidl and Mercadona. Why now put a hypermarket in Viuda de Franco? In Las Palmas the media already defends it saying that it will generate a lot of employment when the reality is that traditional commerce generates 1.600 direct jobs in the south of Gran Canaria and Híper says in its technical sheet that it would produce 30 direct positions, with 4 administrative, 10 security jobs, 12 cleaning employees and 4 for maintenance. And part of those are subcontracted.
That is what a group of businessmen without roots in the south of Gran Canaria are cooking up in Las Palmas before Comercio, which is an area of power in the hands of the PP in the Government of the Canary Islands; but in Tirajana Urbanismo is from CC and AV, the partner of the PP, already has arguments to stand up to those from the north. Who do you want to sell to? Those from Las Palmas who live in tourist apartments with visitors? The officials of the San Bartolomé de Tirajana City Council are outraged because the promoters, including a Lanzarote group that invoices 86,2 million euros, limit the white label to the point that spending on food on the island is 1.540 euros per resident per year, according to data from Caixabank Research, they go to Las Palmas treating the south of Gran Canaria as a colony.
The proposal to build a hypermarket in Playa del Inglés has generated controversy among residents and stakeholders in the San Fernando area. The project foresees that the rear part of the GC-500 be made pedestrian, although in the project they call it a "deceleration lane", which is fine. While the residents are pedestrianized, there are 864 parking spaces planned for the hypermarket. That is to say: the construction and operation of the hypermarket would generate an increase in CO2 emissions and other greenhouse gases. A significant consumption of water, energy and construction materials would be required to build the hypermarket, leading to a significant environmental impact.
The presence of a hypermarket could negatively affect small local businesses, putting the survival of many of them and the loss of jobs at risk. The hypermarket could offer jobs with precarious conditions, such as low salaries and temporary contracts, negatively impacting the quality of employment in the area. The construction of the hypermarket could generate changes in the lifestyle and social dynamics of Playa del Inglés, with the loss of local identity and cultural homogenization. The hypermarket could generate an increase in vehicular traffic in the area, which would affect air quality and traffic flow, especially in high season. The presence of the hypermarket could place a burden on local public services, such as water, electricity and sewage, which may not have sufficient capacity to meet demand.
