The Santa Cruz City Council wants to recover the three windmills located in the Southwest district of the municipality, specifically in Barranco Grande, with the purpose of reactivating the actions that lead to recovering these Assets of Cultural Interest (BIC) so that they are part of the heritage collective. This was announced by the Councilor for Infrastructure and head of the Southwest office, Javier Rivero, who together with the director of Cultural Heritage of the Government of the Canary Islands, Miguel Ángel Clavijo; The Councilors for Culture and Urban Planning, Santiago Díaz and Zaida González, respectively, and technicians from the Heritage area of the Island Council, recently visited several of these structures, many in a state of abandonment.
“The objective – detailed the councilor – is to recover the aspirations of what was called the Pro Molino Commission at the time, a movement made up of residents of the Southwest of Santa Cruz to achieve the protection of the three mills of Barranco Grande, Cuevas Blancas and Llano del Moro” and recalled that “25 years ago, neighborhood and administrative work began in this sense, resulting in the BIC declaration of the Llano del Moro mill, or managing to carry out the rehabilitation of the Barranco Grande mill.”
Rivero insisted that “despite this, the ownership of these heritage references linked to the traditional food of gofio are not public, but continue to be privately owned” and argues that “this situation has caused the Barranco Grande mill to present currently a situation of abandonment and dirt, since the City Council cannot act on it because it is not public property, which is precisely why we try to involve other administrations, such as the Government of the Canary Islands and the Cabildo, to recover them and be able to act on them.”
In this sense, Miguel Ángel Clavijo pointed out that “the windmills of the Southwest are one of the most interesting heritage elements that the municipality treasures and are currently in a significant state of deterioration” and argued that “for this reason, the Government of the Canary Islands, throughout this legislature, will collaborate closely with the administrations that also have powers in the protection of heritage, such as the Island Council and the municipalities, and in this case we coordinate with the City Council to begin the work to recover these mills.”
“The first thing we are going to do,” Clavijo said, “is to contact their owners, since they are privately owned.” The General Director of Culture and Cultural Heritage of the Government stressed that “after this step we will initiate the appropriate proceedings, whether they are expropriation or with another formula that we will already study, with the purpose of recovering these heritage elements and achieving, through collaboration with the Santa Cruz City Council, an administrative relationship that has always been very efficient and effective.”
For his part, Santiago Díaz, Councilor for Culture, valued that “the City Council and the Government of the Canary Islands are promoting the necessary actions to recover the spirit of defense of the historical heritage of Santa Cruz.” Thus, he indicated that “it also means revitalizing a movement of the residents of this district who in the 90s of the last century organized to try to ensure that these elements that are an indisputable part of the collective memory are not lost. cultural”.
Commission
Meanwhile, Javier Rivero said that “what we intend to do is launch the Pro Molinos Commission again and to do so we have already contacted several people who were members of it, and with the collaboration of the Government of the Canary Islands and the Cabildo to achieve what which was sought 25 years ago. The challenge is to ensure that the windmills become part of the public historical heritage of Santa Cruz de Tenerife.”
“In this matter we need the collaboration of the Government of the Canary Islands and, therefore, we appreciate the involvement in getting the necessary administrative procedure started to recover and preserve this part of our history,” highlighted Javier Rivero. In this regard, the councilor recalled, “the Southwest belonged to El Rosario until 1972, and since this territory became part of Santa Cruz, actions to preserve these mills began; In fact, in 1975 the Government of Spain itself declared its protection.”
“At that time – said the councilor – the Santa Cruz City Council got the State to declare the heritage protection of the Barranco Grande and Cuevas Blancas mills, so, for many years and at different times in history, in the Suroeste has insisted on the need for this defense of the traditional elements of towns and neighborhoods closely linked to the agricultural sector, which have always led to the development of the primary sector.
