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AUAN says that Cantoria has published a change to its urban plan which will allow 47 homes in the village to become legal.

However, 3,8 million euros will have to be raised from current and future owners to make it legal, which seems harsh.

Cantoria illegal homes legalised

47 down, 5953 to go!!

Local Spanish media portal teleprensa.es (stories (c) 2009 Diputacion de Almería and associated political parties, depending on who’s paying for the ads this week) wrote a rather hurtful article about the British living in illegal homes in Albox. AUAN, the Albox organisation working to legalise illegal homes in the Almanzora valley took issue with this story. The teleprensa story was in responde to AUAN subtitling recent (rather poor overall) ITV series Paradise Lost which followed disillusioned Brits in Spain (both truely conned and just twits – aka the Benidorm couple) and sending it to local politicians.

The teleprensa story accused Brits of tax evasion, colonisation and “wanting free health care”. Although the article did recognise that Spain’s slow justice system was annoying people.

Full story here -> AUAN complains about “defamatory nonsense” written by teleprensa

AUAN attacked teleprensa with guns a’blazing, accusing them of “inflammatory nonsense” and rotten journalism. They demanded to know who wrote the story, who authorised its publication and souces.

Teleprensa have now issued another long story (here) counterattacking, in which they claim that EU MEPS Marcin Libicki and Michael Cashman, who have written a nasty report condemming Spain’s attitude towards the problem, recognises that the Brits were out of do the poor, hardworking Junta out of hard earned tax cash.

“La Comunidad Británica no ha aceptado de buen grado que se ponga en duda su papel de víctimas como única versión de lo ocurrido en El Almanzora, pero los constantes ataques en medios de comunicación de habla inglesa también han colmado la paciencia de los nativos de la zona, que no entienden por qué las actividades de unos pocos empiezan a poner en peligro su futuro como zona de expansión reglada y con todas las garantías.”

says teleprensa.

(The Brits have not gracefully accepted that their version of events, in which they are victims, be challenged, but the constant attacks in English language media has snapped the patience of locals in the area, who do not understand why the acts of a few must put their future growth, regulated and with all guarantees, of the area at risk”

I predict blood, in the streets of Albox, possibly before Monday, and am watching with interest.

Well, six months, anyway. For building 15 homes without any license, having them declared illegal by the courts and still selling the bloody things on.

http://www.thereader.es/en/almeria-news-stories/457-jail-for-cantoria-couple-who-built-and-sold-illegal-homes.html

The dark days of GIL are put behind Marbella as the town faces a fresh new future. 16,500 homes are to be legalised and developers will be chased for compensation payments from the town hall.

http://thereader.es/en/andalucia-news-stories/318-marbella-approves-pgou-16500-homes-legalised-1500-to-be-demolished.html

Oh, 1,500 homes will still be demolished (500 of them lived in) but you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs, as they say….

Here’s the press release:

A round table meeting is taking place in Mojacar between Local Urban Abuse organisations and Local Ecologists Movements in Mojacar on Saturday 30th May, starts at 11.00am in the Hotel Best Mojacar.

On this Round Table from the Province of Almeria will be

Ecologistas en Acción (Almeria)
Abusos Urbanísticos Almanzora No (Almanzora valley)
Levante Sostenible
Abusos Urbanísticos Levante Almeriense No. (Almeria coastal area)

From outside the Province of Almeria, AUN, the first Citizen Platform to make any impact, will lead others with an interest in urban and environmental issues in Spain

Abusos Urbanísticos No (Valencia)

The objective is to achieve an exchange of views on the Auken report (an EU resolution condemning Spain’s scant regard of Human Rights and Environmental Abuses at all levels of the system)

The ecologists would not support wholesale legalisation of houses.  This meeting is intended to show the human aspect of the situation, and to find a way to work together, agree common ground and issue a joint communique.

A large turnout is expected with the intention that this will impress upon the ecologists just how many people are affected.

David Hammerstein will be attending, an MEP who sits on the Petitions Committee and was part of the investigation visit to Spain for the Auken report.

If you have an illegal house, you need to be there.  Even if you don´t have an illegal house, you will be very welcome.

As you will know, there is a protest march organised by such AVEP, AULAN, AUAN, AUN, LSOS, Cuidadanos Europeos and others, in Almeria on the 9th of Jan through Almeria city to try to bring media attention back to the Priors case and urban abuse in general. (See programme info at Spanish Shilling or other good websites).

While not wishing to aspirations on the much lauded attempt to bring media attention back to the Priors, I am forced to wonder just how much good a march like this will do, and, indeed, if it is contraproductive in the short to medium term.

This is a march that is designed only to bring EU attention to the case, following on from the recent EU draft parlimentary resolution on Urban Abuse in Spain (blog entry here) and hopefully UK & German press attention.

But from a local perspective, and in my opinion after reading quite a bit about it in local (Spanish) press this is not going to sit well with regional politicians, who, as expats can’t vote in regional or national elections in Spain, don’t give two hoots what they think about anything. But they do care what local Spaniards and national press say. Since the economic downturn has just about killed off the expat property market, the politicians don’t need to worry about bad press back in the UK – promoters are too busy trying to stay afloat to bring any real pressure on the politicians and nobody really thinks that Brits back in the UK are going to be scared off because of a protest march (as they aren’t going anywhere until the pound pops back up).

So we’re in a situation where Brits are marching in the streets of Almeria, and the politicians are only worried about the locals. So, how are the politicians going to try to control the situation and come out smelling of roses?

First of all, and we’re seeing this now, they are trying to turn this into a Expat vs Locals situation. Once the (Spanish) press believe that it is only Expats that are affected, then they’ll stop trying to see the (mainly expat) property owners point of view. And they’re doing this by pointing out that in many cases proper legal protocol wasn’t carried out “in order to save the purchasers money – didn’t trust / didn’t have the money to pay proper lawyers, gestors, notaries that we Spanish do! So why is it our fault they were conned?”

Then they say that “the Brits were fully aware of the situation, but just thought that since they were rich immigrants they could get away with it and stuff the locals, we poor people who pay tax and live legally, so it’s their problem to sort it out”.

And so we end up in a situation where the (Spanish) press, while sympathetic, believe that it’s the purchasers fault for trying to save money on their homes in Spain, avoid the tax they should pay and brought illegal homes without carrying out proper checks because they thought they were invincible.

And don’t start on about rigorous journalistic reports in the impartial media, because that doesn’t exist. Rare is the Spanish newspaper that does not tow the party political line. Editors are easily replaceable if the proprietor doesn’t agree with his papers opinions.

And the politicians can point out, to the rare voice that asks what’s being done, to the commission being setup to survey and regulate illegal homes in the area. “Yes”, they’ll say, smugly, “the Brits are complaining, but it’s because they can’t be bothered to learn Spanish or integrate with our community – we’re sorting the problem out but they can’t even be bothered to ask what we’re doing!”

Why, I’ve even seen comments in the press that suggest that with the collapse of the pound property owners are trying to get their homes ruled illegal so that they can get out of paying the mortgage!

And so we Brits appear, marching through the streets, in a well intentioned, well organised, multi lingual protest – a lovely image that will be quickly swung around in the public mind to “whinging immigrants who tried to con local Spaniards by ignoring rules and refused to pay the same taxes I have to pay!”

And that’s why I feel the march is counterproductive for the local market (ignoring the international media attention it may -or may not- generate, which will help with the EU). But even if the EU brings pressure onto Spain, it will just increase the local sentiment of “Bloody Brits, welcomed them into my country and they’re worse than the bloody Moros“.If we’re not careful.