Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Lean times

The crisis in the construction industry here in Spain is having a wide ranging effect on a whole range of issues. Shops and businesses that rely upon the building of new houses for their trade are suffering.

So too is the City Council which last night had to cut the budget for this year by 6% from7,792,000€ to 7,274,831€. The loss of income from licences and taxes for construction is to blame for this. The maintenance budget for the town of 7,000 inhabitants was cut to 313,000€.

In spite of these cuts, the Council will still have to seek loans of 2.5million euros to balance the books. Even though the town has increased in population, the contribution from the State has been reduced from 1.8million to 1.2 million euros.

So there are lean times ahead. Those of us who live off pensions from the UK are already suffering from the weak pound which has reduced the number of euros we get in exchange. For the moment then it is time to pull the belts in.

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