The new tram system in the Tenerife capital of Santa Cruz will carry its first fare-paying passengers on June 2.

The new light rail system, or Tranvia, as it is known on the island, has been ready to go into service for a week or two now but its inauguration was delayed because of local elections due to take place on May 27.

Officially, the tram service's political masters did not want to be accused of taking advantage of the opening.

The cynical among you are probably thinking that they might also have considered that voters might not be favourably disposed towards them if the service hit unforeseen snags during its early days of operation.

Tramcars are already a familiar sight in the business centres of Santa Cruz and its near neighbour La Laguna, the two areas linked by the new service.

The metro system ...

British blues legend Joe Cocker will appear in concert in Tenerife on July 10 during his summer European tour.

The Sheffield-born star, who will be 63 by the time of the concert, starts a mammoth Europe-wide tour in June that takes in Spain, Greece, Georgia, Lithuania, Russia, Poland, France, Ireland, England, Holland, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, Portugal, Norway and Denmark – a punishing schedule of 34 venues in all in little over two months.

He has two dates in the Canary Islands, at the Auditorio in Santa Cruz on July 10 and Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, the following day.

Cocker’s musical career, which spans over 40 years, kicked off when he had his first UK number one in November 1968, a cover version of the Beatles song With a Little Help from My Friends.

He had a second UK hit with Delta Lady but the real ...

A new light rail system, or tranvia as it is more generally known, goes into service on the island of Tenerife shortly.

A 7.5-miles line will operate between the island capital of Santa Cruz and the neighbouring city of La Laguna.

The metro system is designed to relieve congestion in the two cities, which, unless checked, will cause traffic gridlock in five years time.

The route of the new service will mean that more than half of the 350,000 population of the two cities will have no more than a five-minute walk to their nearest tram stop.

The overhead electricity power supply to the tramcars will be generated by ten specially-commissioned wind turbines, making it a totally zero-emission system.

Initially, trams will run every five minutes, with a journey time of 37 minutes. Stops are situated every 500-600 metres and the ...

A new book to be launched in Tenerife next week will claim that General Francisco Franco, Spain’s former dictator, fathered an illegitimate son during his time as military commander of the Canary Islands in the 1930s.

The book, ‘The Secret Son of Franco’, claims the child was the product of an affair with the wife of a lieutenant under his command.

Spanish author Fernando Gracia will launch his new book in the Tenerife capital of Santa Cruz next week (April 20).

The book will allege that the child was born just before Franco launched a failed attempt to overthrow Spain’s Socialist government in 1936, an action he directed from his base in La Esperanza, Tenerife, and which set in motion the bloody Spanish Civil War.

He became leader of the right-wing Nationalist movement during the Civil War and became head ...

It would be stretching the imagination to describe Tenerife as crime-free – where is these days? – but a remarkable statistic has just been revealed about the island capital, Santa Cruz .

No violent deaths were recorded in the city last year.

Bear in mind we are talking about a city with a population of almost a quarter of a million, which is a major port, hosts the second biggest carnival on the planet and entertains hundreds of thousands of tourists from all over the world every year.

It is just one of a number of startling facts revealed in the latest set of government statistics for the island, which also show a reduction of more than six per cent in the overall crime rate in the city.

Furthermore, burglaries were down by a staggering 38.3 per cent, credit card thefts down by nearly ...