ARCHIVED - Further efforts to ensure that restoration begins of the monastery of San Ginés de la Jara

Property developer Hansa Urbana has been fighting the obligation to restore the monument for years

The Urbanismo department of the council of Cartagena has cleared the way for outbuildings around the historic monastery of San Ginés de la Jara, which stands alongside the dual carriageway leading to La Manga del Mar Menor, to be restored by the property developer Hansa Urbana.

The responsibility for restoring the monastery was assumed by Hansa when they acquired the land and initial planning permission for the large “Novo Carthago” golf and residential resort in the area many years ago, but after the development was ruled to infringe land use laws it was effectively halted and Hansa have been resisting the obligation to look after the monastery ever since.

In June 2022 the High Court of Justice in Murcia dismissed an appeal lodged by Hansa Urbana against an order of December 29 2021 from Cartagena City Council requiring them to resume work on the Monasterio de San Ginés de la Jara monastery. Prior to that, in June 2021, the City Council of Cartagena approved an order to force the real estate company to resume refurbishment work, and Hansa Urbana has been appealing the decision ever since at successively higher courts.

The council has already reiterated on multiple occasions that if the company does not carry out these works, they will hire someone else to do it and send the invoice to Hansa Urbana.

The outbuildings included in the latest administrative development occupy a total of 525.65 square metres, while the monastery itself is far larger and was built in the 16^th century, although there are records of small religious communities on the site since the Christians expelled the Moors from the Region of Murcia in the 1240s.

Image: Felipe G. Pagán (Ayto Cartagena)