All along the Costa Tropical town halls are cleaning up the streets after Semana Santa because they are coated with wax thanks to the candlelit processions.

If there is an accident and oil is spilt, the fire service or municipal maintenance crew are immediately out laying sand or applying detergent to eliminate this danger spot before it provokes and accident.

The streets and their safety, after all, are the responsibility of our municipal authorities, so why, you can rightly ask, do they encourage the dangerous practices of coating road surfaces with slippery wax?

This is the 21st Century so there are alternatives to real candles, such as imitation, battery-operated ones, yet our town halls not only permit this dangerous practice, but actually organizes it.

Town halls believe that by sending out teams to scrape up part of the wax dripped onto the roads, and sticking warning notices to be careful when using the streets and roads, then they have their backs covered, legally speaking.

But the fact is that it is not a case of taking action – inadequate at that – after the event, but of failing to prevent that it takes place in the first place.

Nobody is saying that there should not be processions, but that they should not be allowed to put people’s health at risk by turning the roads into ice-skating rinks by using real candles.

(News/opinion: Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)