PP urges Fuerteventura Island Council to honour unanimous agreement to protect Roger family home and coastal heritage

The family of Pascuala Roger is continuing its legal action, has called for an investigation by the Ombudsman and is formally demanding that the unanimous agreement approved by Fuerteventura Island Council be implemented to extend protection for their century-old home. It is the last surviving house in what was once a coastal settlement in Cueva de la Negra, in the municipality of Pájara. In response to what it describes as this abandonment, the People’s Party of Fuerteventura is urging the Island Council to fulfil the institutional motion protecting traditional coastal settlements by joining the proceedings and putting the requested safeguards in place.

The initiative, put forward by the Popular Group last September and adopted as an institutional agreement, calls for an island-wide inventory of coastal settlements and urgent precautionary measures to prevent the demolition of the century-old property, as well as the irreparable loss of Fuerteventura’s coastal ethnographic heritage.

Claudio Gutiérrez, the People’s Party spokesperson on the Island Council, called on the institution to take the initiative and not delay its response. “The Island Council must act immediately, comply with the approved motion, join the proceedings and extend the precautionary measures,” Gutiérrez said. He stressed the importance of supporting not only the Roger Pérez family, but also of defending and preserving the island’s ethnographic heritage. “We cannot turn our backs on heritage so closely linked to the roots of Fuerteventura’s coast. This is not just about the situation of one particular building; it is about defining what the Island Council can and should do when a coastal settlement has cultural and identity values of the highest order.”

Gutiérrez also recalled that the Directorate-General for Coasts and Management of the Canary Maritime Space had warned that demolition would be irreversible. He said it was therefore essential for the different public administrations to coordinate their actions to halt a process that is causing those affected immense emotional distress and would mean an irreparable loss for the public as a whole. “The experience of Cueva de la Negra shows the immense suffering of the Roger family, whom we must support by ensuring that no one acts unilaterally again to seal off or board up their home,” he said.

The institutional motion includes extending the precautionary measures provided for in Resolution 6039/2026 to ensure the preservation of the last standing building in Cueva de la Negra. It also calls for the preparation of an Island Catalogue and Inventory of Traditional Coastal Settlements and for a study of ways to protect places of particular ethnographic and research value, such as the coastal shell middens.