21st century living

Three thousand homes in the San Miguel area still have no safe drinking water years after they were built. The residents in areas such as Blue Lagoon, El Galan, Eagle Nest and Blue Hill rely on bottled water for everything from brushing their teeth to cooking. They have to use the water from the tap to shower and to wash clothes but it leaves a white deposit. In repeated tests the tap water was shown to contain salts and nitrates (leached into the wells from farm land) above the levels considered safe for consumption.

Now we are in an election year, the local council have decided that they can make a provisional connection to the supply from Orihuela. Naturally the residents are asking, if the solution is so simple, why has it not been done before.

If this was in the middle of Africa, it would be understandable but Spain is not supposed to be a third world country. We know that town halls are suffering form a dire lack of funding at the moment but these problems date back to the “boom” years when councils were awash with money; busy making grand plans for all manner of new facilities.

In my opinion, the problem stems from greed. Town halls and builders in the boom years were eager to complete as many houses as they could without considering the impact of their work or the necessity for a proper infrastructure for their developments.

We count ourselves lucky that, here in Bigastro, at least we do have all the correct facilities. Even here though, at Villas Andrea, there are problems for some residents whose houses were built on unsuitable land – a problem that seems to be unresolvable.

I think that when the Spanish economy returns to some sort of normality and before foreigners return to buying houses here, there are a lot of loose ends that will need tidying up. Spain is and will continue to pay the price for allowing builders to construct illegal houses and develop urbanisations without the proper facilities in place before they were planned.

And the bottom line - would I advise any of my friends to buy here in Spain at the moment? Yes I would but with extreme caution. There are some incredible bargains to be had in the housing market at present and Spain is such a wonderful place to live for many reasons (not just the weather).

What you need though is to remove the rose tinted glasses and employ a good independent solicitor who will look after your interests and investigate thoroughly every aspect of your purchase.