The Manilva Town Council have recently appointed local British resident, Chris Olsen to take on the role of liaison officer between the English speaking community and the Town Hall.

Chris, a former physics teacher in the UK, first settled in Spain in 1969 when he lived in Marbella, before moving to Majorca in 1972 where he ran a local language school, as well as being the local secretary for Cambridge University.

Chris became very active in the expat community becoming Majorca Lions Club’s youngest ever President. The local Lions Club was the most active in Spain at the time with a membership covering some 17 different nationalities.

After a brief spell in France in the early ‘90s, Chris returned to Spain and settled in Manilva in 1996, and many of you will know him from the bookstall he runs on the Sunday market.

Chris’s interests are football, the environment and adult education, the latter of which he is keen to promote access to such schemes as the Open University and other distance learning projects.

Chris has a BSc (hons) and a MSc in science and adult education and is currently finishing a thesis for submission to the OU.

Chris first came into contact with Antonia Muñoz within days of moving to Manilva. He had purchased a property in Punta Chullera and the day after he moved in a gang of workers turned up to erect a huge mobile telephone mast on an adjacent plot.

After calling the local police, who halted the works, Chris throught that was the end of it, only to find the construction continued immediately the police had left. After this process was repeated 5 or 6 times, Chris went to the Town Hall where Antonia Muñoz was the Mayor at the time, and on hearing of their plight she issued a decree banning the mast, and solving the problem permanently.

With this in mind, Chris decided to offer his assistance during the 2007 local election campaign, and it was decided that given his contacts amongst the expat community and his fluent Spanish, he would make an ideal candidate for the role of liaison officer.

Chris will be working out of the Foreigners Department  in the Extension de Usos Multiples in Calle Miguel Delibes, Sabinillas and, if not in his office, can be contacted at the moment on 665 384 160 between 8 am and 3 pm from Monday to Saturday or at the Sunday market between 9 am and 2 pm.