Hot-on-the-heels of recent police interrogations centering on staff at the resort from which Madeleine went missing comes news that tour operator Mark Warner has dropped its contract with Praia da Luz’s Ocean Club resort.

In a statement on the Vacation Company’s website, the holiday company states: “We regret to inform you that Mark Warner no longer have a contract with the Ocean Club and therefore this property has been removed from their Summer 2015 programme with immediate effect”.

The decision comes at the end of a year where Luz residents have repeatedly spoken out against the stigma hanging over the holiday village that is forever being dragged back into the limelight as British police return again and again in their multi-million pound investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance.

As residents have frequently complained: “Luz is not being given a chance to recover” from the infamy of being the resort from which the world’s most famous missing person mysteriously vanished.

But almost no-one is prepared to go on record over the extent to which Madeleine’s disappearance has affected life and business in Praia da Luz.

It’s as if the stigma carries a threat that few are prepared to face-up to.

Only last month, Ocean Club manager Donna Hill told us: “I really cannot comment. One day I would love to break my silence”.

Bystanders following the seven-year mystery have commented: “It would be good to hear whether these people have been sworn to silence - and if so under what compulsion and by whom”.

But this Christmas restaurant owner David Jones went on record with the Resident, agreeing that Praia da Luz is “a shadow of its former self. You hardly see anyone on the streets at night now. In the old days, the place was buzzing at this time of year”, he told us.

Jones agreed the situation “probably has a lot to do with the Madeleine story”. He has his once thriving bar restaurant on the market now, but is not expecting a rush of would-be purchasers.

And while Donna Hill tell us she and her husband John are on holiday until January 5 and so “unable to comment” on this latest development and what it means for the future, the Mark Warner switchboard repeatedly pulled the plugs on our telephone calls to their offices in England. On the fifth attempt to talk to someone, we got an answer: “The contract is being taken over in its entirety by Thomas Cook” said a female operator, stressing that this was the only reason Mark Warner had dropped its involvement in Praia da Luz.

In 2009 however, the tour operator was reported to have issued a writ in the high court seeking compensation from its insurers for losses from “interrupted business” at the Ocean Club.

An article in the Guardian newspaper quoted a Mark Warner spokesman as saying: "It is a matter of public record that Mark Warner's bookings to Portugal were affected by events nearly two years ago, but the resort remains very popular and we are looking forward to resuming our summer operations there this May."