January 2011

Happy New Year to you all and as the old song goes – let’s hope its a good one. 2011 is a very big year. Not least because it is the year of the Municipal Elections. Members of the SOHA.ES Committee will be standing in two of our worse affected boroughs, Alcaucin and La Viñuela. Mario will be standing in Alcaucin and Philip and myself will be standing in La Viñuela. Mario with Los Verdes (The Green Party) and Philip and myself with the Partido Andalucista. The fact that we are standing with different parties is not important. What is important is that we are distancing ourselves from the two “major” parties and particularly the PSOE who have failed us so badly.

With only five months until the elections it is time to give some thought to our policies. Top of the list as you would expect is housing. The incumbents seem to have adopted a policy which can best be described as – OK, we screwed up but you guys who bought houses are on your own now. Additionally, the lack of adherence to Andalucian law has bred a climate of mistrust between the Junta and the Ayuntamientos of the Axarquia. A new climate of trust needs to be established and key to this must be sticking to the laws as they are layed down. No more building in the campo unless the requirements for area and use are met. We will stick to the law. The other side of the coin is that the Junta needs to start regularising homes built and bought in good faith. Working together we hope to end once and for all the nightmare that many in our community are enduring.

Clearly the future for employment in this area is not going to be villa construction in the campo unless the law is changed. Let us be clear that we do not support a change in the law. We came here to enjoy the beautiful countryside – not see it covered in concrete. One of the few valid alternatives to construction is obviously tourism. Here we have substantial room for development – just try putting “Things to do in La Viñuela” into google and see how poor the response is. Our aim is to encourage more people to come here for their holidays through development of sustainable tourism. I will develop these themes more next month.

In the meantime, if you have comments on our prospective policies then drop us a line on [email protected]

Once again Happy New Year to you all.