Andalucía prizes its white villages which is why after a sustained calima intrusion from the Sahara, town halls are trying to get their streets white again.

Modest home owners, faced with orbital electricity and fuel prices, not to mention the cost of filling a shopping basket, place repainting the house facade pretty far down on their ‘things-to-do’ list, which is why town halls are supplying the incentive or material.

Take the case of Frigiliana where in May, the Town Hall cut municipal bills by 40% to compensate for higher, water bills generated by trying to wash the Saharan dust from their walls.

Meanwhile in Almáchar, with its 1,900 residents, the Town Hall has gifted each house owner with a 20-litre can of white paint, which amounts to a total of 12,500 kilos of white paint.

The Mayor, Antonio Yuste (PSOE), signed a municipal bylaw announcing this measure so that house owners can put the ‘white’ back in the village under the slogan, Volvamos al blanco!

He explained that after the calima onslaught in March, he approached the Provincial Council, the Junta de Andalucía and the Central Government looking for a grant. However, to date, not a sausage!  So they decided to delve deep into the municipal coffers and buy the paint for the task.

(News: Almáchar/Frigiliana, Axarquia, Costa del Sol, Malaga, Andalucia)