Pau de la Calle

The small village of Espui is located in the Vall Fosca, in the province of Lleida. Where live about seventy habitants who for twelve years coexist with a series of elements that dirty the landscape charm of the area. In 2000 the company Vallfosca Interllacs obtained a license from the municipality of Torre de Capdella to develop twenty hectares in the town. The Galician real estate company Fadesa S.A. acquired the project in 2006 and the following year it merged with the Madrid-based Martinsa S.A.

The innovative project planned the construction of a ski resort of forty kilometres of slopes, linked with nine chairlifts. He also planned to build a hotel complex with 2400 seats, a thousand new homes, a congress palace, and a multitude of restaurants and shops in the town.

In 2008 the merged Martinsa-Fadesa S.A. suffered the largest bankruptcy in history in Spain, with a debt of 7,000 million euros. At that time the inhabitants of the area saw trucks that collected the construction materials, such as the wiring of the chairlift, and transported them to a warehouse in Zaragoza. Finally, the company that owned the project completely paralyzed the works.

Currently, the project is still in bankruptcy and all the half-built infrastructures are part of the landscape of the area. Nobody knows what will happen, broken illusions for the inhabitants of the area and the unknown of whether someone will be in charge of finishing it or fixing the damage occasionated in the territory.