Ecologistas en Acción asks that the Department for the Environment and Chipiona Town Council implement the rulings on the demolition of illegal constructions and do not give in to pressure exerted by those behind the illegal building of these dwellings and those who support them.

In the face of the new controversy arising due to the demolition rulings on a score of illegal dwellings in Chipiona and an apartment block in Tavizna (Benaocaz), Ecologistas en Acción publicly shows its support for the aforementioned rulings passed against these illegal constructions. The organisation also warns the administrations who reported them, Chipiona Town Council and the Department for the Environment (CMA), that their duty is to follow and enforce the law.

These people in Chipiona have built their illegal homes knowing full well that they were illegal; we should not listen to the usual excuses imploring us to compare them with other towns, to see who has the most illegal housing. The law should act in all offending areas, and is doing so, there being a significant number of demolition rulings, the most important against the Montenmedio Hotel (already enforced) and against the tourist complex Las Beatillas (El Puerto), awaiting implementation.

In the recent conferences on planning breaches, the mayors of all the parties agreed on defending planning legality, and that we must take action right from the beginning to prevent the proliferation of illegal construction, some demanding more diligence and forcefulness from the law. However, subsequently, when the problem arises in their area, they defend the planning offenders and criminals, assuring them that they will legalise the houses, as in the case of the mayor of Chipiona, or putting obstacles in the way of demolition, as the Mayor of Benaocaz has done recently. The latter demanded the demolition licence from the CMA to demolish the apartment building illegally built in Tavizna, in the heart of the Sierra de Grazalema Nature Reserve (Parque Natural de la Sierra de Grazalema).

The Prosecutor has warned that the legalisation of illegal dwellings causes a beacon effect, illegal developments and subdivisions of land multiplying in the face of the expectation of new ‘regularisation» processes. Ecologistas en Acción will continue to support the Environment Prosecutor in its reporting of the illegal developments and construction, and will request the demolition of all of them, as the only effective measure to stop this cancer which is corroding the majority of our communities.

Ecologistas en Acción hopes that the next modification of the Criminal Code on land and town planning offences, which includes maximum sentences and new criminal offences, such as penalising the civil servants who “through their inspections kept the infringement of the rules quiet”, helps to end the collusion existing in technical and political areas of many Town Councils regarding these offences.