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Floods blamed on development - 31 October 2007

This autumn has seen some terrible weather conditions hitting Spain’s Costas – parts of the Coast del Sol suffered from intense hailstorms with many cars damaged in the mountain villages behind Marbella, and very heavy rainfall on the Costa Blanca caused flash flooding in numerous towns and villages along the coast.

Spanish environmental group WWF/Adena have claimed that the flooding in the Alicante region, although due in large part to the sheer volume of rain that fell in a short space of time, was exacerbated by poor town planning. This stems from the speed of the building boom over the past decade, as well as a greedy attitude form developers and local authorities alike to build as much as possible in a short space of time.

The WWF claims that the regional authorities are aware of their part in the planning problems that have led to the flooding, and are taking steps to ensure that further heavy rain does not lead to inundations.

Meanwhile, thousands of British homeowners around the Spanish coastline are nervously awaiting the outcome of a report by the Spanish environment ministry into what will happen to properties built illegally too close to beaches and coasts across Spain.

The law prevents any building within 100 metres of beaches and coastlines anywhere in Spain, but this law has been widely flouted in the past decade of the building boom, the government is said to be preparing to buy back much of the offending property through negotiation, rather than resorting directly to the route of expropriation.

An announcement is due on Wednesday.

 

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