Brits meet with Almeria planning chief

Brits meet with Almeria planning chief

    Members of the Abusos Urbanísticos Almanzora No (AUAN) committee, accompanied by their legal and planning representatives met with Luis Caparros, the Almeria housing and territorial planning delegate and Jose Ortiz Mallol, Director General de Inspección de Ordenacion del Territorio y Urbanismo, the head of the Junta de Andalucia organisation which was set up to control and prosecute planning irregularities.

    In a statement after the meeting Luis Caparros said that the Junta de Andalucia and the town councils of Zurgena, Albox, Cantoria, Arboleas, Partaloa, Albanchez and Lubrin were to collaborate in drawing up plans for local inspections which would detect properties outside planning regulations and that individual files would be drawn up specifying the exact legal situation of each of the properties. He went on to add that the Junta had an obligation to collaborate with the justice system and that it would comply with any court decisions regarding the affected properties. The regional delegate said that the general plan for inspection of housing, town and territorial planning was awaiting its approval in December and that the provincial government had promised its total and permanent collaboration on the plan. He warned that those irregular properties that had problems, that is those without basic services or outside consolidated urban nuclei, would have no solution.

    In a statement issued by the AUAN, a local organisation which is campaigning to bring about the proper legalisation of the estimated 5,000 cases of land and houses in the Almanzora Valley currently considered to be "illegal", said that the meeting was both constructive and cordial but no detailed information on the mechanics of a solution appears to be available at this time despite the representatives of the Junta re-iterating their determination to provide a solution to the complex situation of illegal houses within the law and with respect to the rights of the homeowner, regardless of their nationality.