The Vélez-Málaga Town Hall is steeped in another controversial decision following the one to increase their salaries.

This time the Town Council, led by a PSOE/GIPMTM coalition has suspended the payment that builders have to make as a guarantee that they will process all their building waste correctly. The Town Councill claims that they took this decision in order to streamline bureaucratic procedure.

This law, which forces developers and builders in general to use treatment plants instead of fly tipping, (otherwise they lose their security deposit) came into force in 2012. This law also covers minor-works licences.

Once the developer/builder produces documentation that proves that all their building waste has been processed correctly, the sum is returned. However, the law has not prevented illegal dumps sprouting up around the municipality.

The socialist Mayor, Antonio Moreno Ferrer, considers that this measure reduces papework and the amount of time that builders have to wait before they can begin. The Councillor for Urban Development, Moreno Ferrer, claims that it is also done to relieve pressure on the ailing pockets of locals.

The opposition doesn’t see it that way.

The Spokesman for the PP, Francisco Delgado, has expressed his “enormous surprise and indignation,” over this move.

“We are talking about a security deposit that is returned as long as the builder shows that building waste was taken to a treatment plant, so it’s no extra cost at all,” he reasoned.

He also pointed out that the Town Hall has been working on a municipal building-waste, treatment plant to convert rubble etc into material for regenerating beaches, thanks to a 5-million grant from the European Union.

Furthermore, the Asociación de Empresas Gestoras de Residuos de la Construcción y Demolición de Andalucía (AGRECA), which is participating in the Brick-Beach Project, considers the move to be an “authentic aberration.”

(News: Velez-Malaga, Axarquia, Costa del Sol, Malaga, Andalucia)