Optimism

Firstly regarding the new case listed for next Tuesday, and involving people from near the cemetery in Zurgena, some of the houses off Avenida Poetas in Llanos del Peral and some from Los Menchones, I asked if this was the same scenario as the previous cases from Los Carasoles, La Alfoquia and Cuesta de los Pinos. Candido said that this particular case is actually part of Operation Sewing Box, the investigation which involved his arrest and that of a number of builders, architects and councillors under allegations of bribery and corruption. He informed me that the legality of none of the homes, who have been warned, is subject to any legal action and anyone instructing a solicitor to act for them may find it interesting to pose a question to the court regarding whether their property is or is not legal. I also asked what sort of lines of questioning the people attending court may receive. He said that he did not know but that it may be around details of their purchases and how they paid for them. He also suggested that I might like to ensure that everyone is aware that it is a crime to buy houses with black money and that, not only is the recipient of such money possibly guilty of an offence, so is the payer. He told me that he would expect the questioning to be about things like what licences they had, how they paid for them, how much they paid etc. He also said that any solicitor acting for any of those warned might also like to ask a question about if these houses are illegal, then whose fault is it and who should I be looking to claim compensation from. As no one has so far been found to be in the wrong  then there would be, in his contention, no point in registering a claim for compensation. If that is in fact what they want people to do. However as was shown on the previous cases each individual will do what they think is best for them.

We then discussed the progress with the PGOU and he was really pleased to inform me that there did at last seem to be movement from the Junta which would allow almost all of the developed areas in the previously agreed urban centres to be included in the PGOU. 

Manolo has a meeting in Seville next week either Wednesday or Thursday and it is strongly believed that substantial progress will be made on this. Candido is now more hopeful than ever that a satisfactory PGOU can be in place and effective by October this year. I asked about my own area Cuesta de los Pinos and he said that would take longer as the intitial PGOU would only consider developements built close to the agreed urban centres eg Los Carasoles, Los Llanos del Peral, La Alfoquia, Zurgena, El Palaces and Cucador. For areas such as mine which are between two urban centres he is optimistic that these could be incorporated in the following years plan as, if they reach the agreement he hopes, they can increase the developed area by 40% the following year and this should be sufficient to include Cuesta de los Pinos.

I asked if there had been any news on the project for the street in Palaces and the barriers on the road to Los Llanos del Peral and he said it is out of their hands and they were still waiting for the junta to allocate the contract.

These being the most important issues for today I did not press him on the less important points which I will leave fo a week or two. I will of course be chasing Salvadore for the rest of the inventory at the end of next week.

As sual any question or clarification just email me at jiminysimpson@gmail.com