The United for Baria Campaign
A curious and bitter situation in the fishing village of Villaricos in southern Spain is gaining nationwide attention, with property developers set to build 24 luxury holiday apartments over the unexcavated remains of the seventh-century BC Phoenician city of Baria.
The proposed construction work will cover the ancient port’s harbour, the remains of boathouses used to repair and store vessels, and fish salting factories. The area is seen as essential to the integrity of the wider archaeological site, and the plans have sparked a battle between cultural associations, local government, private landowners and property developers that continues to be played out in court and on the ground.
The president of the Unidos por Baria association, Juan Grima, has spent 20 years fighting to preserve ancient Baria, and 13 regional cultural associations have so far joined him to rally and protest in Villaricos, most recently in February 2026. Señor Grima has branded the urban development project "the death sentence of a site that no one has excavated or properly developed", and believes that the remains of the Phoenician city should become an archaeological park and cultural destination.
Despite the Villaricos Archeological Zone being declared a Site of Cultural Interest (BIC) in 2005, the current status quo stems from the local government’s failure to secure public ownership of the entire site, with accusations of vested interests involving emergency archaeological reports not being publicly released while utility licenses for the project were granted.
In the early 2000s, citizen mobilization stopped a multi-storey hotel project from progressing in a different sector of the Baria site, after which it obtained BIC status, the highest level of legal protection for archaeological zones in Spain. The hotel developers were paid almost two million euros for lost earnings, but one particular plot was never transferred to public ownership and was later acquired by the development company now planning to build the holiday homes.
Unidos por Baria rightly claims that the construction project represents an irreversible threat to the Phoenician remains of Baria by burying a key part of the ancient city under concrete, and is currently engaged in legal action against the Andalusian Regional Government. It argues that the authorities are obliged to defend historical heritage and owe a duty towards present and future generations. As of now, the controversial development looks set to go ahead, but the story is far from over.
Unidos por Baria