Elviria A-7 Exit | Marbella Makes a Strong Case to Reopen It

The Elviria A-7 exit should reopen while permanent works are finished, Marbella council told the Ministry of Transport on 27 October 2026. Its Junta de Gobierno Local approved an urgent, detailed report asking for the exit from the A-7 towards Elviria and Las Chapas, near La Víbora, to be restored on a provisional basis, after it was closed in September without warning to the town hall, residents or businesses.

The report rests on a Policía Local study dated 15 October, which documents queues, rear end collisions near the motorway and traffic pushed onto narrow residential streets since the closure. The council is proposing a simple fix, an exit only link of about 135 metres, and it wants it in place until the larger junction works agreed in 2021 are complete.

Why the Elviria A-7 exit closed

In 2021 the Demarcación de Carreteras del Estado, the state roads authority for the A-7, authorised changes to the junctions in this stretch of eastern Marbella. That authorisation removed certain connections but also provided for a southern service road and the adaptation of the Elviria junction itself. According to the council, neither of those works has been finished, and yet the Elviria A-7 exit at La Víbora was shut in September.

The mayor, Ángeles Muñoz, said the closure “se produjo de forma unilateral y sin comunicación previa”, unilaterally and without prior notice to the council or to the residents, shops and businesses affected. The council sent a formal demand for the immediate reopening of the slip road on 23 September, and says it has had no reply. Press reports have linked the junction works to new housing nearby, a link the council’s statement does not address.

What the Policía Local found on the ground

The council’s infrastructure and planning departments prepared the report with the traffic department and the Policía Local, using site inspections, photographs and an analysis of how traffic now moves. The main finding is that traffic which used to leave the A-7 at La Víbora is now concentrated on avenida Jardines de la Golondrina, with queues and rear end collisions where it meets the motorway.

Drivers are also taking longer routes through interior streets with a single lane in each direction, some of them with poor road surfaces. The study records greater exposure for pedestrians near schools and shopping areas, and knock on effects for residents, hotels, holiday lets, restaurants and the wider local economy. Since the Elviria A-7 exit closed, every journey into this part of Marbella from the west has had to find another way in.

The mayor summed up the problem. “El enlace de Elviria está asumiendo actualmente movimientos de tráfico que antes se distribuían a través de otros accesos, sin que su configuración esté adaptada para absorber toda esa demanda”, she said, meaning the Elviria junction is now carrying traffic that used to be spread across other accesses, without being designed to absorb it. She described the result as a very serious problem of operation and safety that needs attention without waiting for the final works.

The council’s report on the Elviria A-7 exit goes further than its September letter. Alongside the police evidence it sets out technical, legal and planning arguments for a provisional solution, drawn up by the departments that manage roads and urban planning in the municipality. The Ayuntamiento’s position is that the closure has materially changed how people reach their homes, and that the safety problem it created cannot wait for the end of the permanent works.

The council’s plan for a provisional Elviria A-7 exit

The proposal is deliberately modest. The council wants to restore only the movement off the A-7 into the town, not the slip road back onto the motorway, which its study considers the more dangerous of the two. A direct deceleration lane of about 95 metres, with a speed limit of 40 kilometres an hour, would connect to around 40 metres of urban road leading to the roundabout on avenida Víbora Baja.

Leaving the slip road back onto the motorway closed is a considered choice rather than a compromise. Joining fast moving traffic from a short slip is the harder manoeuvre, and the municipal study judged that reopening it could bring more risk than it removes. Restoring only the exit solves the problem residents feel most, getting home from the west, without reopening the movement the roads authority was most concerned about.

According to the municipal study, that layout would restore access safely while the southern service road and the adapted Elviria junction are completed. The council expects it to relieve the Elviria junction, shorten the queues that currently back up onto the A-7 and remove the extra journeys through residential streets. It is a short piece of road, and a provisional Elviria A-7 exit of this kind could be built quickly once the Ministry agrees.

Who relies on the Elviria A-7 exit

The people most affected are those who live in Elviria and Las Chapas and drive in from Marbella, San Pedro or the western coast every day. School runs, commutes and shopping trips that used to leave the A-7 at La Víbora now loop through other junctions and residential streets. The police study singled out the areas around schools and shops as the places where pedestrians are now more exposed, which is the part of the report most likely to move the Ministry.

Businesses depend on it too. The council’s report names hotels, holiday lets and restaurants among those affected, and eastern Marbella has a large share of all three, serving visitors who arrive by car from Málaga airport. A closure in September missed the peak of the summer season, so a provisional Elviria A-7 exit in place over the winter would have the area ready well before the visitors return next year.

Elviria, Las Chapas and the eastern side of Marbella

Elviria and Las Chapas make up much of Marbella’s eastern coast, a long stretch of residential urbanisations, beach clubs, golf and pine woods between Río Real and Cabopino. It is quieter and greener than the western side of town, with larger plots and some of the best beaches in the municipality, including the protected dunes at Artola. Many of the homes here are family villas and garden apartments owned by people who live in them all year, which is why access matters so much to the people who complained.

The A-7 is the spine of that whole coast. It runs along the line of the old coastal road, with the toll motorway, the AP-7, running further inland, and every urbanisation between Marbella and Fuengirola depends on its junctions for access to the town, the schools and the airport. Our guide to Marbella sets out how the eastern districts fit into the municipality, and the Los Monteros page covers the closest beachside urbanisation with its own guide on our site.

Transport links shape where people want to live on this coast more than almost anything else. Our posts on the San Pedro de Alcántara transport hub and on Málaga airport’s record August covered the same theme from other angles, and the Elviria A-7 exit is a reminder that small junctions matter as much as large infrastructure to the people who use them every day.

Road access and property values in east Marbella

Buyers notice access, and the Elviria A-7 exit is a clear example. A home that takes ten extra minutes to reach in the school run, or that sits on a street now carrying through traffic, is harder to sell while that lasts. But this is a temporary situation with a clear solution, and both the provisional exit and the permanent works agreed in 2021 point towards better access for Elviria and Las Chapas, not worse.

The permanent scheme, once built, will give this part of Marbella a southern service road and a junction designed for the traffic it actually carries. Owners who hold through the disruption are likely to end up with better connections than they had before the closure. Our Marbella property market report shows how the eastern districts have performed against the rest of the municipality, and the long run demand for family homes on this side of town has not depended on any single junction.

We keep sold prices and listing histories for the urbanisations across Elviria, Las Chapas and the rest of eastern Marbella, built up over years. That lets us separate a short term effect such as a closed exit from the longer trend, and tell an owner what their home would achieve now. The valuation calculator gives a first figure, and our seller service takes it from there.

The Ministry’s reply and the permanent works

The next move belongs to the Ministry of Transport and its roads authority in Málaga. The council has now sent technical, legal and planning arguments as well as the police evidence, which gives the Ministry a fuller case than the September letter. If it agrees, the provisional Elviria A-7 exit is a small enough job to be done in weeks rather than months, and the permanent service road and junction can follow on their own timetable.

The permanent answer is already approved in principle. The southern service road and the adapted Elviria junction were written into the same 2021 authorisation that allowed the connections to be removed, so no new planning decision is needed to deliver them, only the construction. Seen that way, a provisional Elviria A-7 exit is simply a bridge between the old layout and the new one, and the council is asking for that bridge to be built before the old road is taken away rather than after.

Buyers looking at eastern Marbella in the meantime should weigh the Elviria A-7 exit closure as a temporary inconvenience rather than a reason to look elsewhere. Tell us what you are looking for through our requirements form and we will show you the homes in Elviria and Las Chapas that suit, along with the full range of property for sale in Marbella, and how each is reached while the works continue. We drive these routes every week, and we will tell you honestly how long the journey from each home to the school, the beach and the A-7 takes today.

Elviria A-7 exit, the common queries