For the residents of La Herradura’s Carmenes del Mar, the end of September means autumn rains and rain means yet more problems, as if there weren’t enough already.

Whilst the judge recognised back in July that work must be carried out urgently to stabilize the hillside to stop further deterioration, bureaucracy seems oblivious to this.

The residents need a bank guarantee for the repair work but it still remains tantalizingly out of reach owing to the slow pace of bureaucracy – summer is not the best time to get anything done as far as public administrations go.

The fact is that the judge had ordered that the accused provide 4.5m euros for precautionary repair work but what the residents are asking for is a bank guarantee from the Almuñécar Town Hall for a quarter of that; one-million euros and that the Town Hall should carry out the necessary work.

The residents consider that although the accused are the main culprits of the problem, the Town Hall should never have issued First Occupation Certificates in the first place; in other words, they share responsibility, morally if not legally.

There’s a hell of a lot more to it than mentioned here but the essences is that even though one day the trial will reach a conclusion and if there is any justice in the land, in our opinion, the property owners will win it, it may well be too late… and all the while bureaucracy creaks almost unperceivably forward.

(News: Herradura, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)