Behind the closed gates of the Duque del Infantado park, disgruntled children watched as their castle-slide was toppled to the ground and their merry-go-rounds dismantled by Manzanares el Real town council technicians. On these first days of September, some of them were crying, banging against the gate and climbing up the bars. In vain.
Almudena de Arteaga y del Alcazar, the 57-year-old 20th Duchess del Infantado, has reclaimed the gardens her grandfather deeded to the municipality in 1975, the year of the death of the dictator Francisco Franco, in a bid to win the sympathy of local residents. For 50 years, the children of this community of some 9,000 inhabitants in the mountains 50 kilometers north of Madrid, played and grew up there. "It's a park of incredible social and environmental value for the families of Manzanares, the only one in the town center to offer shade, under large, century-old trees and to create social cohesion and diversity," said Maria Monclin, mother of a 5-year-old boy.
For the past decade, the Infantado Family, one of Spain's most noble families, whose origins date back to the 15th century, had been demanding that the park be returned to them. The municipality tried to buy it back but was unable to agree on a price with Almudena de Arteaga, a successful writer of historical novels. The land registry office calculated the value of the land, which is not permitted for construction, at €140,000. The Duchess demanded €2.5 million. The town council launched an expropriation procedure, while the Duchess retaliated by initiating eviction proceedings. In June, she won the case.
"If I had agreed to pay what the landowner demanded, I would have been guilty of corruption," explained the Socialist mayor of Manzanares, José Luis Labrador, on social media, in the hope of calming the growing anger in his municipality. He went on to announce that a new park would soon be created on an empty plot of land previously used as a parking lot. The parents, for their part, have decided not to give up the fight.
Speaking on Onda Cero radio, the Duchess of Infantado assured listeners that she had "suffered for ending up [with the eviction]," and blamed it on the "stinginess" of the town hall, which "has spent a lot of money on taxes related to the park." On September 15, the day the garden officially passed back into the hands of the Infantado estate, dozens of families gathered in the park to demonstrate one last time. "How long can a single family transmit property inherited from a feudal system to the detriment of the general interest?" said Vera Sanz, a 45-year-old audiovisual technician now deprived of a play area for her three young children.
You have 42.73% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.