The message is clear, the Coastal Department plan to begin the process of expropriation and demolition of illegal buildings in the bay of Los Cristianos, particularly in the Los Tarajales zone.

A meeting was called between José Alberto González, mayor of Arona and local hotel owners to explain the situation and to discuss the improvements which have been in planning for months by The Cabildo, the Canarian Government and the Coastal Department for the stretch between the Barranco de Aquilino and the Playa Chica.

All illegal buildings will be demolished that block or make the public zone difficult. Boats anchored in the bay will be made to leave. The beach will be revamped, extended and walkways improved.

In total, 8 five-star hotels, 10 smaller hotels, and 4 others under construction were declared illegal. Together, they account for 7,721 hotel rooms or apartments on the island. Top-of-the-range hotels that could be pulled down are the Meliá Volcán, Iberostar Papagayo, Gran Castillo, Natura Palace, Rubicón Palace, Papagayo Arena and Son Bou.

A special police unit, which fights organised crime, has been called in to investigate whether the former mayors of Teguise and Yaiza issued illegal building licences in return for back-handers from property developers.

Business groups in the area say pulling down 22 hotels will leave hundreds out of work and hit the tourist trade hard.

An announcement by Wladimiro Brito, the Cabildo Minister for the Environment states that the majority of Tenerife’s mountain recreation areas are plagued by rats.

The amount of rubbish and food waste that visitors leave in the parks, plus the fact that the numbers of predatory birds that feed on rats has fallen, are the two major causes for the increase in number of rats.

The Cabildo has contracted the public company Tragsa to carry out the necessary work to control the rodent population, which, apart from causing nuisance to visitors, is also damaging the local wildlife and vegetation. A budget of 89,000 euros has been allocated to the project.

Experts working on the project say that the quantities of rubbish left behind have contributed to the increase in the number of rats and suggest that park users take their waste home and dispose of it there.

A youth will have a difficult job escaping conviction after leaving an easy clue to his identity after he burgled a nursery school over the Easter holidays.

The 25-year-old Tenerife man broke into the school in , helped himself to food, and then made off with a video camera and a DVD player. However, on his way out he dropped his wallet containing his ID card and photographs nieces and nephews. He has been arrested and questioned about two burglaries on the same day.

The body found floating off the beach at Fañabe last Friday has been identified by Guardia Civil forensic experts as a 29-year-old Lithuanian identified only as Robertas J. who does not have appear to be a resident of Tenerife.

The floating body was found by the Pico Teide sea rescue vessel during an unrelated search for two divers who failed to surface from a dive at Palm Mar near Punta Rasca last Thursday.

The body was identified from fingerprints and shows no signs of foul play.