Thursday 18th December

First of all I need to explain about the two recent court cases involving Zurgena. There have been two cases which relate to our area.

The first was a case which ruled against the TH and the councillors/developers. The judge in this case before making his ruling decreed that he did not want to see any technical reports as he already had ones from the Economic Police and the Junta. He therefore chose to ignore reports from a technical architect from Malaga (an expert) and our own Architect. Both of these reports obviously set out the case for these areas to be considered part of the urban floor on land which was clearly urban e.g. within the boundaries of the norms as previously established. In this case they found negatively for the Town Hall. This is the case which got the publicity which stated that Candido was going to prison and could not hold Public Office for 13 years. This has obviously been appealed as not having taken consideration of the full facts. The next case probably shows how.

The second case which happened before the first, in fact on the 27th November, and the adjudicating Judge was Marta Inez Sierra LOPEZ. I have recorded her name as she is the first judge to sensibly apply a matter of fact, regarding urban land. This case relates to 3 small areas of Cucador, all of which fall within the boundaries of the old village. Her ruling refers to this fact and finds in favour of the Town Hall.

Judge Lopez basically has said the same as the TH has been saying for the past 8 yrs. These areas of Cucador are in  an urban nucleus because it is inside the norms of the village. Under this position under article 45 of the LOUA and as it has the necessary infrastructure it should be considered urban  This related to 3 areas one of which is the houses to the left of the rambla. The courts acutely ruled in our favour in 2012 but after Junta appeals and this latest re appeal it is now ruled that the urban floor is urban. 

This is a distinctly important ruling for our Town Hall as it sets a precedent which should apply to other cases. The Town Halls solicitors have been in contact with the National Spanish Press and asked them to start showing a more balanced view of reporting these cases and La Voz de Almeria has agreed to run an article about this ruling . So watch this space. (If anyone wishes to have a copy of the court ruling please just let me know. I did try to upload it to the last post but failed).

The PSOE controlled Junta still, unfortunately, maintain that other than the old centre of La Alfoquia all other areas are outside the norms e.g. acceptable urban floor. We can all see the ludicrous nature of that and hopefully now that Judge Lopez has examined this fact and found in our favour more similar rulings should follow.

I again raised the fact that we have not yet installed the street plans for Los Llanos and the pool area in La Alfoquia. Candido informed me that the big town hall lorry was broken but he would get them to use the smaller vehicles and get it installed next week.

We are working on a new rota for tidy ups across the municipality. It seems to me that at the moment we have a few Mayors and all are pulling the TH workers in different directions. So will try and get some sort of order to the rota for attention. It is this problem which has also caused the delay to the illumination of various street lights. I have also supplied the workers with a list of all the lights which you have reported as being in need of new bulbs.

Political posturing has started in earnest now in advance of the local elections next May. I suspect that the next ones are going to be quite interesting given that the main parties seem to have fractured.

Due to holidays etc this will probably (unless contacted with anything urgent) be the last post for 2014 and in view of that I wish you all a very happy Xmas and a great 2015.