February 2011

Hello everybody.  First can I say thank you for all your support at the SOHA.ES Annual General Meeting in January.  It was very well attended and it was very pleasing for the committee to receive almost unanimous support for the strategy presented at that meeting.  Thank you.

It has also been very gratifying to receive such great publicity to kick off our political campaign.  We have been the subject of numerous articles in both the Spanish and the English language press and all seem to be very positive.

I know that I said I would enlarge upon our manifesto this month but in the light of a recent meeting with the Diputación de Málaga, it would be remiss of me to let it pass without comment.  The meeting was held in the offices of the Diputación de Malaga just after New year, a modern spacious building right on the beach on the western side of Malaga.  The meeting was with Señor Cristobal Guerro Merchan, the Deputy Delegate.  The meeting was cordial and even though he turned up over an hour late (we’re retired so we’re not in a hurry) it was time well spent.

We spoke about the decree being prepared by the Junta de Andalucia.  The decree will describe the guidelines to be used to deal with irregular properties in Andalucia.  It contemplates three basic outcomes:

1.      Some houses will be given a first occupation licence even though they are currently outside planning regulations.

2.      Some houses will be regularized, but at a cost.  The cost of sewage, road and other infrastructure must be borne by the homeowner.

3.      Houses that exist in some form of protected area will be demolished.

This is a story we have heard before and, as always, it raises many questions.  I don’t have the space here to debate the whos, whens and how muches but I do want to draw your attention to one point.  The decree was reported in the El Pais newspaper at about the same time as our meeting with the Deputy and they reported: “Of the planning done so far, only between 5% and 15% of the buildings identified as illegal have no chance of regularization”. Only!

Think about this a minute.  There are 10,000 illegal houses in the Axarquia alone.  Are they seriously suggesting that between 500 and 1,500 homes are to be destroyed!  Er, I think they might be.