A BLACKPOOL man has accused legendary crooner - Julio Iglesias - of exploiting Spanish landgrab laws to build a £370m leisure complex.

Former music industry manager, Kenneth McNeil, 58, from Blackpool, is among a group of 120 British ex-pats and dozens of Spanish locals who are furious at the lady-loving singer's plans to build 1,500 luxury villas and a golf course in unspoilt mountainside village of Benichembla, Valencia.

Mr McNeil claims Iglesias - who is pursuing the development through his Benidorm-based company, Coll de Rates SA - has enticed the village mayor, Aurelio Llinares, into a deal to compulsory purchase land owned by the villagers for the complex. Under controversial Valencian laws, passed in 1994, property developers are able to ask officials to reclassify land from rural to urban, without the owner's permission, in order to speed up developments. But a loophole in the law has meant that not only are the people of Benichembla being forced to accept payment for land at a level "far below" its current commercial value, they are also being issued with huge bills to cover charges for new roads, street lighting and drainage. Mr McNeil said: "My property could be right in the path of this development. The feeling here is such that if they take land and property, in the end somebody is going to get hurt."

But a spokesman for Coll de Rates SA, of which Mr Iglesias - worth an estimated £550m - owns 50 per cent, said: "The people of Benichembla have been misinformed about the company's intentions."