Update & A PSOE admission!

Today I was able to have a meeting with the Mayor and Deputy Mayor for over an hour and was able to get a much better understanding of the issues surrounding infrastructure amongst other things. I did go armed with a list of 10 points but please forgive me I forgot to place a couple of questions which I will try and address as soon as I can.

Firstly I asked about recent cases which had been decided by the courts and I asked if I could be told which areas they were and whether I could make these decisions public. I was advised by Manolo that it would still not be sensible to publicize these cases yet as we now have more than 4 recently decided cases, all in the Town Halls favour, and others are being dealt with each week. They do not want to jeopardise these cases by crowing about their successes and causing appeals to be lodged. I told them that many people check the blog to find out what is happening on this point but they insisted that they felt better if I reassured people that all the cases so far to appear before the courts have found in favour of the Town Hall. They said that when they felt comfortable no appeals were likely they would let me know.

I asked about Barranco de los Pinos and the houses which had been taped shut by the Police near Cucador and whether I could give anyone interested in those developements any news and I was told that whilst the civil cases in relation to these have been or are being found in favour of the Town Hall the Junta also referred these cases to the Criminal Court at Huercal Overa. The problem with those cases is that they do not know how long it will be before the criminal cases will be heard. I pushed for them to give me some idea but they said they were unable to.

I then asked about the Socribo houses in La Alfoquia where the occupants are in the position of owing as much almost as they already paid for their houses and did not have licences of 1st occupation or electricity. It was explained to me that this particular builder had acted in an very dishonest way but that the Town Hall have continued to try and get the parent company (Socribo) to put right all the things they should have done, prior to the licences of 1st occ being granted. There had been issues with the water, street lighting, pavements, sewerage and other things besides the lack of an authorised electricity supply.Because the Town Hall were aware that the occupants of these houses had sunk a lot of their own money into trying to get things done, they were bending over backwards to try and facilitate the issue of these licences but they would not compromise on the electricity supply. That had to be installed authorised by Sevillana and checked by the Town hall architect and if all was okay the licences would be granted. This he said, would be done in the shortest time frame possible.

The next issue I raised was regarding the street lighting in the areas of Los Menchones, Palaces and Cuesta de los Pinos.

Firstly in relation to Los Menchones; Candido said he would check with the Boletins received to see whether the builder has done what was asked of him in relation to the lighting and other issues before he could sanction the connection and effectively the adoption of the developement by the Town Hall. He said that if the builder in relation to this area was Tisan then they had had similar problems to that which they had with Socribo. He agreed to look into it and if I had not got an answer by next Tuesday to raise it with him at my next meeting with him.

Secondly in relation to Palaces it was explained to me that the area I was talking about was one of the first in the Zurgena municipality to be given permission to build and the Town Hall were nieve about what they could and could not insist on builders doing, in the way of infrastructure in those days. They accepted,  therefore, that this falls to the Town Hall to arrange and for them to pay for.

Thirdly in relation to Cuest de los Pinos; Manolo was disappointed and annoyed that New Horizons had not completed the installation of the lighting there as he had told them to get it done. I told them that nothing had happened since the 15th December and in fact the development looked much worse as a result of the preparatory work for the installation having been abandoned. He agreed to take it up with New Horizons. I was also shown a letter applying for a licence of 1st occupation from New Horizons which stated that the street lighting had been initiated!! Well at the least some of the holes had been dug!They will apply pressure to try and get that moving.

I also made a suggestion, from some residents near to me, that consideration might be given to Telefonica availling themselves of the conduiting going in for the lighting to make it easier to install phone lines. They seemed to think a very interesting and novel idea! They did agree to mention it in dealings with Telefonica.

I also asked what was the situation regarding our 3 new Police Officers. I was advised that they started back in the village this week. They are still to some extend under training until June but will be available for some duties in the area until then.

Lastly I informed them of the content of the below paragraph which I had forwarded from a coordinator in Arboleas which kind of goes to show what we are up against.  

"Illegal Houses
   --- Before seeing Ángel, I tackled the Mayor (Francisco Miras). He assures me that there are no illegal buildings in Arboleas (not even on the edge of the Rambla, for example).
   --- He emphasised  the importance of the fact that his is a PSOE administration - so there is a very good 'understanding' with the PSOE government of the Junta in Seville. That is of course consistent with the point made by James Simpson in his article in the current issue of The Messenger (page 6). Nevertheless, it was an eye-opener to have it shamelessly admitted by a PSOE Mayor."

Both Manolo and Candido laughed and they intimated, not that they were surprised, only that the mayor would openly make that statement.